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Billings man pleads guilty to harassment towards African American woman – Daily Montanan [1]

['Daily Montanan Staff', 'More From Author', '- June']

Date: 2023-07 

A Billings man pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony harassment charge after being accused of leaving “threatening and racially hostile” voicemails and calls to an African American woman at a Billings church.

Joshua Leon Hiestand, 41, a transient white man, left a voicemail in the fall of 2020 using a “derogatory term” and saying he would “give more money to the church if it did not employ an African American,” according to a District of Montana U.S. Attorney’s Office press release.

This was days after Hiestand went to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church for assistance and Jane Doe, a Black woman working at the church, gave him a gift card, according to the Order of Proof.

Days later, Doe later answered the church phone again and a man said he would have given the church more money “if the church did not employ a black pastor,” the release said.

In another voicemail left by Hiestand he said, “Nobody wants you here.”

Doe contacted the police after Hiestand referenced the receptionist at the church in a January 2021 voicemail.

Hiestand admitted to an officer that he left the voicemails and apologized and the officer advised Hiestand not to have further contact with the church, the release said.

After leaving another voicemail to apologize, Hiestand continued to call and leave messages during the next year and a half that the government described as “threatening and racially hostile.”

Toll records collected by law enforcement showed that Hiestand placed the calls from outside of Montana, court documents said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Zeno B. Baucus is prosecuting the case. The FBI and Billings Police Department conducted the investigation.

Hiestand faces a maximum of two years in prison, a $250,000 fine and one year of supervised release. Hiestand was also charged with stalking but was dropped in the plea agreement, according to the Offer of Proof. Sentencing was set for Oct. 26. Hiestand was detained pending further proceedings.

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