A Kootenai County judge on Thursday held a preliminary hearing with attorneys in Bonner County, witnesses in Boundary County and the defendant in the Boundary County jail, where she remains as the case moves forward.
JaMisha Nevarez, who served a brief and troubled stint as CEO of the Bonners Ferry Seniors Center that culminated in her firing and arrest for trespassing and resisting arrest May 31. She was arrested for allegedly threatening Boundary County Prosecutor Andrakay Pluid June 28 and charged with a felony under Idaho’s bribery and corruption statutes for threatening a judicial officer prosecuting a case against her.
Assistant Bonners Ferry Police Chief Jeremy Garrett and Boundary County probation officers April Isaac and Alisa Walker each testified to the defendant’s tempestuous demeanor, going from calm to highly emotional to angry and threatening by turns, and to her anger and threats towards Pluid, who she blames for making her undergo numerous drug and alcohol tests at her own expense.
Pluid, who requested earlier to be withdrawn as prosecutor of the misdemeanor charge due to the conflict but was denied, testified that Nevarez had contacted her in 2023, angry about a misdemeanor case that went unprosecuted in 2020, before Pluid held office, and for which the statute of limitations had since expired. After several subsequent calls descended to screaming, Pluid testified, she refused to talk to Nevarez by phone.
After being hired at the Seniors Center, she said, Nevarez, then going by Misha Davis, began contacting her office to report fraud and missing funds until her dismissal.
Pluid testified that Nevarez, who she testified told Sheriff Dave Kramer she’d leave the county if charges could be dismissed, “very clearly does not care for me,” having accused her in court hearings via Zoom that she was unethical, corrupt, out to get her. She testified that Nevarez made statements that there was a special place in hell for her, that her daughters would be raped and trafficked. On July 26, she said she learned from probation officers of threats made against her in their office that had escalated; that Nevarez would “rip my f*****g face off,” and “mow me down.”
The nature of the threats, she said, concerned her and made her afraid for she and her family’s safety.
“She knows where I work, where I live, what I drive,” Pluid testified.
The defense rested, calling no witnesses, and Judge Tristan Poorman ruled that probable cause exists to proceed with prosecution, setting arraignment in Boundary County at 9 a.m. Wednesday, August 7, before Judge Lamont Berecz.
Nevarez remains in custody on $100,000 bond, If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison and/or fines up to $5,000.