Victim’s family upset with plea agreement in sex abuse case that remains sealed
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ST. ANTHONY — The family of a victim in a sexual abuse case is upset about a “minimal sentence” that remains out of public view.
In December 2020, EastIdahoNews.com reported that Fremont County prosecutors charged Nathan W. Fleming, 43, with two felony counts of lewd conduct with a child. Shortly after we posted the story with the information included in charging documents, the case disappeared from the public record.
As the case unfolded behind closed doors, its outcome, including the sentencing, remains a mystery.
The victim’s family is now telling EastIdahoNews.com that Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake signed a plea agreement with Fleming and dropped the sex offense charges in exchange for him pleading guilty to felony injury to a child. The plea agreement also stipulated Fleming spend 15 days in jail, followed by six years of probation.
EastIdahoNews.com is not naming the family member to protect the victim’s identity, and we cannot independently confirm the plea agreement or sentence because — although the case has been adjudicated — it remains sealed from public view.
When EastIdahoNews.com requested a copy of the plea agreement and official sentencing records, Fremont County Courts denied the request citing the case being sealed. Over the past year, EastIdahoNews.com also tried requesting the court docket for Flemming and the official order sealing the case, all of which were denied.
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After the case remained in the dark for nearly a year, the victim’s family reached out to us, upset about the sentence.
“She’s a publicly elected official, and with the seriousness of this crime, the public that does the election will never know why she would agree to something this minimal for a crime of this seriousness,” a family member said.
According to the family, Fleming will not have to register as a sex offender because of the lesser crime he pleaded guilty to. Charging documents for Fleming described in graphic detail the allegations of sexual abuse and molestation of the victim in 2020.
In documents that were originally available to the public, Fleming never admitted to touching or sexually assaulting the victim during his investigation by police.
“There was information we found out at the sentencing that was more damaging than what we had known before,” the victim’s family said. “To our surprise, she (Blake) in court made it very clear she did not have all the information that was in the psychosexual examination when making the plea deal.”
With the case sealed, almost no other information is known about it and very little can be verified, including who the attorneys and judges were. It’s not clear who asked for and who ordered the case to be sealed in the first place.
EastIdahoNews.com reached out to Blake multiple times, but she did not respond to any of our messages.
The Idaho Department of Correction shows Fleming is on probation for the charge until Oct. 11, 2027.