KALISPELL (AP)
Kalispell police properly carried out a search at the home and business interests of Richard Dasen Sr., in building a prostitution case against the former Kalispell businessman, the Montana Supreme Court ruled. Justice William Leaphart issued Tuesday’s ruling, a unanimous decision by a five-justice panel. Dasen is serving a two-year sentence after being convicted of five felony sex charges and one misdemeanor. He was accused of using his businesses to lend money to struggling women and girls and raising the option of prostitution when they couldn’t repay the money. Prosecutors said Dasen spent million of dollars on sex with women, mostly methamphetamine addicts. He was sentenced in September 2005 and given credit for 120 days served in jail. Dasen was arrested Feb. 24, 2005, after a police drug investigation kept leading to Dasen as a funding source. That same month, police searched Dasen’s home and two businesses in which he had an interest. The applications for the search warrants listed items to be seized, but the warrants did not and the applications did not accompany the warrants presented when the searches were carried out. Dasen’s lawyers cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down two weeks later saying the search was illegal. On March 2, 2004, all the items were returned, and taken again with a new search warrant that listed the specific items to be seized. Dasen argued the second warrant was invalid “because it was the product of the first, invalid search.”
