Kidnapper’s Request for New Trial Rejected

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — A Wilsall man sentenced to 40 years in prison for escaping from a Bozeman pre-release center and holding his former foster mother hostage has been denied a new trial.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1xILEVC ) that Gallatin County District Court Judge John Brown on Thursday ruled that the request by 26-year-old Charles Dustin Rickett came after a 30-day deadline.

Rickett was convicted on Feb. 27 of aggravated kidnapping, intimidation and escape for events in July 2012. He received the 40-year sentence on April 25.

At his sentencing hearing, defense attorney Steven Scott filed a motion for a new trial citing new information that might have caused reasonable doubt in the jury.

Rickett says he's innocent, and was set up by unknown men he had been partying with in Bozeman.