Former county clerk convicted of assaulting wife
Former Grant County Clerk Kenneth Kunes was convicted of assaulting his wife in March. The jury found Kunes not guilty of threatening to kill, imprisonment and interfering with domestic violence reporting.
EPHRATA - Former Grant County Clerk Kenneth Kunes was found guilty on misdemeanor assault and harassment charges this week, following a March incident with his wife.
Kunes was found not guilty on the more serious felony charges of threatening to kill and imprisoning her.
He will be sentenced during a Sept. 22 hearing.
Kunes served as county clerk from 1999 to 2006.
Jurors heard testimony from the victim, Lauri Kunes that her estranged husband pinned her on a bed and threatened to kill her and their dog after she allegedly took a bag from his friend. The assault left large bruises on her arms and Kenneth Kunes' attorney, Harold Moberg, told jurors there was evidence of an assault, but not felony imprisonment or harassment.
Lauri Kunes told police she and her husband were going through a separation/divorce.
The incident began in March when Lauri Kunes went to her husband's house and found him with a friend "smoking some substance out of some sort of machine with pipes in it," according to the police report. After an argument, Lauri Kunes went back to Kenneth Kunes' mother's house where she was staying and got into an argument with his elderly mother. Kenneth's mother allegedly slapped Lauri Kunes in the face, according to the police report.
Kenneth Kunes returned to his mother's house about 11 p.m. that night and accused Lauri Kunes of taking a bag from the residence. During the argument he pinned her on the bed and demanded she tell him the location of the bag, according to court documents.
Kenneth Kunes left the house and later returned with a written agreement, in part stating she would not tell the police about the assault in exchange for him giving her some joint property in a divorce settlement. Both the Kunes signed the agreement, according to court documents.
After Lauri Kunes' co-worker told the police about the assault, she was granted a protective order, barring Kenneth from coming to his mother's house where she was staying, according to court documents.
After the temporary protective order was granted, he returned to his mother's house to talk to his wife, saying his lawyer thought it was best if she did not show up at a later hearing extending the protective order, according to court documents. Prosecutor Elise Abramson said that conversation warranted interfering with reporting domestic violence charges.
On cross-examination from Moberg, Lauri Kunes told jurors when Kenneth Kunes pinned her on the bed she did not consider it imprisonment. On his closing statement, Moberg asked jurors how far they were willing to let "the state" into their own homes and let police and prosecutors define an argument into a serious threat to kill.
Abramson said that Lauri Kunes did not know the legal definition of imprisonment and jurors should follow the letter of the law, not the victim's interpretation.
She said when Kenneth Kunes pinned his estranged wife on the bed for about five minutes that constituted the legal definition of imprisonment.
"For those five minutes she did not have the liberty to do anything except call out for help from her mother-in-law that hates her," she said.
The Grant County jury was comprised of nine men and three women.
The Grant County Clerk is responsible for processing and managing all Superior Court records, according to the county's website.