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Bond set at $1 million for murder defendant Milo Whitetail

Judge Doug Mattson set bond Wednesday at $1 million cash for Milo Blaine Whitetail, 56, of Minot, who is charged with the murder on Monday of Eric Christopher Patterson, 43.

According to court documents, Whitetail stabbed Patterson 15 times with a steak knife in a room at the Economy Hotel. Whitetail had claimed that Patterson had followed him to his room and, at some point during the argument, had grabbed Whitetail by the throat. They toppled over the bed and landed on the floor with Patterson on top of Whitetail. Whitetail grabbed the steak knife off his night stand and stabbed Patterson. He rolled Patterson off him and kept stabbing Patterson multiple times in the head, chest and back because he was angry. The dispute apparently was prompted by Whitetail’s accusations about thefts at the hotel and his broken remote control.

In court on Wednesday, Ward County State’s Attorney Roza Larson said the prosecution might file a motion to have Whitetail declared a habitual offender, which would enable the judge to double any sentence Whitetail receives if he is convicted or pleads guilty. The maximum sentence is life in prison without parole, but a lesser sentence is also possible.

Whitetail has an extensive criminal record in federal, state, and tribal courts. He was found guilty in 2008 in U.S. District Court of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and was ordered to serve six years in prison. His probation was revoked twice after he violated conditions. On the first occasion, in 2014, Whitetail was arrested at the Spirit Lake Casino under the influence of alcohol and was charged with disorderly conduct due to an incident that occurred while he was living at the Lake Region Residential Recovery Center in Devils Lake. The judge sent him back to prison for six months. The second time his probation was revoked, in 2015, the judge sent him back to prison for nine months. According to court documents, Whitetail violated the condiitons when he was arrested and convicted of public intoxication and threatened to kill a police officer who arrested him and was charged with violence toward a police officer. He pleaded guilty to assault in Spirit Lake Tribal Court.

In Northeast District Court in Ramsey County, in October 2017, Whitetail pleaded guity to Class C felony contact by bodily fluids or excrement and Class B misdemeanor theft of property. Judge Donovan Foughty sentenced Whitetail to a year and a day in prison, all suspended; gave him credit for 45 days spent in jail, and placed him on supervised probation for two years for the felony offense. Whitetail was to go to a treatment center in South Dakota. The Spirit Lake National Recovery and Wellness was to pay for the treatment. Foughty revoked his probation in April 2019 and re-sentenced him to five years in prison, with a requirement that he serve two years, and gave him credit for 201 days served. He recommended that Whitetail receive treatment while he was incarcerated. In August 2019, Whitetail pleaded guilty to fleeing a police officer, a Class A misdemeanor; a second offense of DUI, a Class B misdemeanor, and a third offense of driving with a suspended driver’s license in district court in Ramsey County. Judge Foughty sentenced him to 180 days in jail for fleeing from police and gave him credit for the 167 days he had already served in jail. The sentence was concurrent with the sentence for contact by bodily fluids or excrement.

Larson told Mattson in court on Wednesday that Whitetail was placed in the community through probation and parole and he hadn’t been living where he was supposed to be living. Whitetail told the judge he is currently on probation and his probation officer knew where he was living.

Mattson scheduled a probable cause hearing in the case for Aug. 13.

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