Man charged with helping Idaho inmate escape during a hospital ambush sentenced to life in prison

Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho man who prosecutors said ambushed and shot correctional officers at a Boise hospital in a plot to help a fellow white supremacist gang member escape from prison was sentenced to life behind bars on Friday.

Nicholas Umphenour, 29, pleaded guilty earlier this year to several felonies, including aiding and abetting escape and aggravated assault and battery on law enforcement officers in connection with the March 20 attack at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.

Umphenour’s attorney, Bryan Marx, said Umphenour is also expected face charges in a separate case connected to death of man who police say was killed while Umphenour and the escaped inmate, Skylar Meade, were on the run.

Fourth District Judge Nancy Baskin described Umphenour as an unremorseful “career criminal” and said he would not be eligible for parole for at least 40 years.

“You present a clear danger to the community, and I’m not convinced that any rehabilitation will reduce your risk,” Baskin said. “The only thing I can do is give you a very long sentence.”

Umphenour met Meade in prison and both men were members of a white supremacist gang, Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Heather Reilly said. They grew close while at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, with Umphenour describing Meade as “like family,” in recorded phone calls.

Umphenour was released from prison in January, and it wasn’t long before he agreed to help Meade plot his escape, Reilly said. Meade had a contraband cellphone, Reilly said, and Umphenour repeatedly texted Meade to let him know he’d bought ammunition, obtained a gun, and purchased other supplies for the escape.

“When it comes to cops, let’s only do it if we have to,” Meade wrote in one text, apparently referring to the possibility of shooting an officer.

“I’m feeling dangerous,” Umphenour texted back, later continuing that, “secretly, I’m ready to snatch a life.”

The escape happened around 2 a.m., after correctional officers transported Meade from prison to a Boise hospital for treatment of self-inflicted injuries. Reilly said Umphenour ambushed the three officers from behind, shooting two of them before fleeing with Meade.

A third officer was shot by a responding police officer, who in the chaos had apparently had not been notified that there were correctional officers at the scene. All three of the officers survived.

One of the officers, Daniel Lopez, told the judge that the attack put him in an impossible position — he could either return fire and defend himself and his partners, or he could hold his fire to keep from putting incoming patients and health care workers in danger.

“Every person coming in was in danger,” said Lopez.

“One of the things that keeps me up at night is that I couldn’t protect the whole public,” Lopez said, referring to two north-central Idaho men who died while Meade and Umphenour were on the run. Meade has been charged in one of the deaths, and police said he is a suspect in the other.

Meade and Umphenour were arrested roughly 36 hours after the hospital attack.

Reilly played recordings of Umphenour from sometime after his arrest, in which he is joking about shooting the officers and comparing it to his first felony charge of poaching a moose.

“I only got a year for poaching a moose, and that moose died,” he told his mother in a video call. “So then I shoot two pigs, and they don’t die, so then I’m thinking: Probation?”

The judge said the joke was shocking and distasteful. She asked Umphenour to consider whether Meade was actually a friend, or just using him.

“This type of violence will not be tolerated in society by anyone,” she said. She urged Umphenour to remember that while he may only care about his own family and friends, each of his victims also has family and friends who love them. “It is my hope that you can learn to be a better man.”

Umphenour’s attorney Marx said he doesn’t agree with the prosecutor’s description of the events and would like to argue the matter, but feared anything mentioned in this case could become fodder for the murder case in northern Idaho. The prosecutor in that case is expected to seek the death penalty, Marx said, making the stakes exceedingly high.

“Certainly we have many disagreements with the assessments Ms. Reilly makes today. However, we are somewhat hamstrung” by the other criminal case, Marx said.

Meade was sentenced for his role in the escape plot earlier this year to life in prison, becoming eligible for parole after serving at least 35 years.

Both men also were indicted in June in Nez Perce County on murder charges in connection with the death of 83-year-old James Mauney of Juliaetta, Idaho. The Idaho State Police said Mauney’s remains were found near Leland, Idaho. State police are still investigating the death of another man in the area that they say may be connected to the case.