Boundary County counterfeiter goes to prison

Billy Jo Mutter, 46, of Moyie Springs, recently returned from the six-month retained jurisdiction program of the Idaho State Board of Corrections.

He had pled guilty to felony possession of forged stolen notes, bank bills or checks for making and passing fake $50 bills at his home.

Mutter was charged Jan. 24 after a person he’d given one of the fake bills tried to spend it at the Moyie Store.  The cashier recognized it as a fake and reported it to the Boundary County Sheriff’s office. A search of Mutter’s Roosevelt Road residence turned up the equipment, ink and paper used to make the bills.

A hearing was held on Nov. 29 before Judge Benjamin Simpson to determine whether Mutter should be placed on supervised probation or sent to prison for the remainder of his term.

At the hearing, Boundary County prosecutor Jack Douglas recommended prison based on a report filed by the Department of Corrections that Mutter was not a good candidate for probation.

“The state found that Mutter, while in the program, received seven various warnings and showed an attitude that was not acceptable in a probation candidate,” Douglas said. “Authorities reported that Mutter was rude, cocky, interrupted others, minimized his own drug use, minimized how his actions impacted his own family adversely and was untruthful at times.

 In group sessions, he was very defensive and angry. In addition, he withheld information from group sessions he was supposed to share to protect himself, thus robbing himself of the benefit of the program,” Dougals explained.

After testimony, Judge Simpson agreed with Douglas’ recommendation, and imposed the original prison sentence of two years determinate and four years indeterminate.

Douglas said the judge did what was necessary to protect the public from a man who didn’t want to change.

“Our main concern must be the protection of the public,” he said. “When someone is given a chance to attend the rider program, he must avail himself of the program and its benefits. By refusing to take the program seriously, I think he left us no real choice.”