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Legal troubles are mounting for a local woman awaiting sentencing in a felony child endangerment case.
Sheenagh Elizabeth Adams was arrested last Wednesday on charges of harboring accused felon William Scott Wegner and compounding a crime to hinder prosecution by providing him money and property while he hid out in a remote area in Arizona earlier this month.
Adams, 36, made an initial appearance in Bonner County Magistrate Court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what her bail was set at and if a public defender was appointed to represent her.
Adams is accused of facilitating Wegner’s flight from October 2019 to March of this year, when she was confronted by a member of the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force in Ponderay on March 4.
A Bonner County grand jury indicted Wegner on two counts of lewd conduct and one count of rape last year. Wegner is accused of molesting a 5-year-old girl in March 2018. He’s also accused of molesting and raping another girl who was between the ages of 12-14 from 2017 to 2019, according to the indictment.
The grand jury also indicted Adams, Wegner’s girlfriend, on charges of aiding and abetting his lewd conduct against the teenage victim in the case and allowing her to be placed in harm’s way. Adams entered an Alford plea to felony injury to a child and the aiding and abetting charge was dismissed in exchange for the plea. Adams admits no wrongdoing by virtue of her plea, although it will be treated no differently than a standard plea of guilt when she’s sentenced on April 13.
Wegner, 41, pleaded not guilty and a bench trial was set for October of last year. Wegner, however, failed to show and a warrant was issued for his arrest, court records indicate.
Adams, a probable cause affidavit alleges, admitted earlier this month that she had received a letter from Wegner on the eve of his trial indicating that he was leaving the area and asking her to care for his son. Adams did not advise authorities that she had received the letter, the affidavit said.
Adams ultimately admitted that she had a second cellphone hidden in her vehicle which she used to stay in daily contact with him, the affidavit said. She also stated that Wegner sent her his bank card so she could withdraw cash and have it sent to him in Arizona by the mother of Wegner’s other son’s girlfriend. Investigators also recovered from her vehicle a piece of mail bearing an address in St. Johns, Ariz., according to court documents.
Wegner was arrested by the Apache County Sheriff’s Office earlier this month and returned to Idaho to be tried.
It also emerged in recent court filings that Adams was looking for a woman to carry Wegner’s child because she could not. A witness in the case told investigators she believes the couple planned to impregnate the teen with Wegner’s child, an affidavit said.
