Woman pleads guilty to witness intimidation

SANDPOINT — A Bonner County woman accused of attempting to intimidate a witness in a lewd-conduct case pleaded guilty to a reduced charge on Wednesday.

Melanie Lynn Taylor is scheduled to be sentenced in magistrate court on Jan. 4, 2017.

Taylor, 33, was accused of attempting to influence or deter the testimony of a 15-year-old girl, the alleged victim in a lewd-conduct case pending against Taylor’s boyfriend, Elijah Zacariah Nuss.

A criminal complaint alleges that Taylor repeatedly tried to influence or thwart the teen’s testimony from May to November.

At one point, Taylor sent the teen a text begging her not to cooperate with an Idaho Department of Health & Welfare caseworker or anyone else about the allegations against Nuss.

“..(Y)ou will have to put it out there for the world to know so just lie and say nothing happened for the love of God please and tell no one,” Taylor said in one of the text messages.

The teen was reunited with her biological father out of state who told sheriff’s investigators that Taylor contacted him and asked him to keep her out of Idaho so she could not testify against Nuss, a probable cause affidavit states.

Nuss, 34, is accused of having sex with the girl in the summer of 2015, when she was 14. However, in written statements to authorities the teen alleged that Nuss had been having sex with her for the past three years, according to court documents. Nuss has denied the allegations and his case remains pending.

The charge against Taylor was downgraded to bribing a witness, a misdemeanor, court records show.