North Central District Court Judge Stacy Louser took a tough stance in court on Thursday and questioned light sentencing proposals made by the Ward County State’s Attorney’s Office for an accused drug dealer who has also been charged in other cases with domestic violence.

Louser ultimately rejected a plea deal Thursday that would have called for no additional jail time but two years of supervised probation and a deferred sentence for the man, who was charged in December 2021 with Class B felony possession with intent to manufacture or deliver methamphetamine. Under the terms of the proposal by the prosecution, the B felony charge would have been dismissed in two years if the man successfully completed probation.

The same man has other, unrelated charges pending, a number of them domestic violence related. He pleaded guilty earlier Thursday to misdemeanor violation of a no-contact order. Although the prosecution had recommended a 360-day sentence, with all time suspended except the 63 days he has already served in the Ward County Jail, and 360 days of unsupervised probation, Louser refused to accept the plea deal as presented on that charge as well. The man agreed to enter his plea on an “open plea basis, giving Louser the right to change the sentence. She accepted most of the plea deal as presented but ordered that the man serve one year of supervised probation.

“That means you are going to have a probation officer watching over you,” Louser told the defendant, who is also ordered to have no contact with the purported victim. The woman in the case wrote a letter to the court claiming that she made up a previous domestic violence allegation and the defendant didn’t actually grab her by the neck last summer and she does not want a no contact order, but both Louser and the prosecutor were skeptical of those claims and wanted the no contact order in place as part of a criminal judgment.

After he had been sentenced on that charge, Louser then also questioned the light sentence proposal on the B felony charge and asked Ward County Assistant State’s Attorney Rina Morales to explain why the plea deal was offered to the man. Morales, who was recently hired by the State’s Attorney’s Office, said she had not been party to the negotiations and could not give that detail. Louser paused the change of plea hearing and told Morales to go to the Ward County State’s Attorney’s Office and find an attorney who could go into detail. Morales returned with Ward County Assistant State’s Attorney Tina Snellings, who explained that the state’s attorney’s office offered the plea deal because the defendant doesn’t have a felony criminal record and his public defender, Katie Miller, had persuaded the office that the defendant’s history included personal use of drugs.

“Our belief was that he started distributing to support his habit,” Snellings told Louser, and the state’s attorney’s office wanted to “give him a break” so he wouldn’t have the B felony on his record and could seek help for addiction. She also said he had agreed to plead guilty to multiple files and resolve the cases against him. Louser pointed out that he had only agreed to plead guilty to two of his files and a third case was to be dismissed entirely.

Louser then said she was not comfortable with the plea deal and would not accept it. She gave the defendant the option of pleading guilty to that charge as well on an “open plea” basis and letting her decide his sentence. He opted to set the case for trial instead. His defense attorney, Miller, asked Louser to set the case for trial but to leave time open for her to negotiate another plea deal with the state for the defendant. Louser agreed, but said that any future change of plea for this defendant must be scheduled before her, and the state’s attorney’s office cannot try to schedule it before any of the other judges in the North Central Judicial District.

Miller had asked Louser to review the bond set for the defendant on Thursday as well. The prosecution recommended a $7,500 bond for the defendant, but Louser rejected that as too low and set bond at $25,000 cash or corporate surety.