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Prison time unlikely in Amtrak drug charge plea bargain

Tim Leeds Havre Daily News [email protected]

A Beaver Dam, Wis., man has pleaded guilty to three felony charges filed after he was arrested in Havre June 17 for carrying drugs on an Amtrak passenger train, but the plea agreement is recommending he spend no time in prison as a result. Kristian Allen Borrud, born in 1983, pleaded guilty in state District Court in Havre Friday to two counts of possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute and to carrying dangerous drugs on a train. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5. In the plea agreement, the Hill County Attorney's Office is recommending three-year suspended sentences on each count, to run concurrently. Borrud is asking for three-year deferred imposition of sentences on each count, also to run concurrently. If Judge David Rice, who is presiding over the case, were to impose deferred imposition of sentences and Borrud abided by all conditions of his release in the probationary period, Borrud could ask to have the felony charges struck from his record. According to the charging document, Borrud was arrested after a drug-searching dog, Barry, used by the U.S. Border Patrol during routine checks and searches of the Amtrak trains alerted his handler to the apparent presence of drugs in a suitcase belonging to Borrud. Borrud gave the agent verbal consent to search the suitcase, and the agent removed three vacuum-sealed bags containing marijuana from the suitcase. Two of the bags were wrapped In shirts and the third was wrapped in a pair of shorts, the charging document said. On June 18, the Border Patrol provided the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force additional evidence turned in to them, a backpack found on the train near where Borrud was sitting. The backpack was found after Borrud was arrested and the train had left Havre. The bag contained items with Borrud's name on them, the document said. A Task Force agent identified the substance in zip lock bags found in the backpack as hash. The total weight of the marijuana found was 2.96 pounds, and the total weight of the hash was 148.6 grams, or about 5.25 ounces, the document said. The name tag on the suitcase showed Borrud was traveling en route to Columbus, Wis. Borrud provided the Border Patrol agent with two home addresses, one in Ukiah, Calif., and a permanent address of Beaver Dam, Wis.

 

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