SANDPOINT — A Priest Lake man accused of rape and lewd conduct with minors is entering into a pretrial settlement agreement to resolve his case, 1st District Court records show.

William Scott Wegner entered Alford pleas to one count of rape and one count of lewd conduct. In exchange for the pleas, a second lewd conduct charge was dismissed.

Wegner, 41, entered the pleas on Thursday. Under such pleas, a defendant admits no wrongdoing but concedes a conviction could be obtained if the matter were tried by a jury.

Wegner’s pleas will be treated no differently than standard pleas of guilt when he is sentenced on Aug. 18. He remains in custody at the Bonner County Jail.

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall said in court documents that he will seek concurrent 15-to-life terms. Counsel for Wegner will be free to argue for a lesser sentence.

Wegner will not be allowed to appeal his plea, but he can appeal his sentence if the court exceeds recommendations in the case, court records indicate.

The pleas bring an abrupt end to a case that has been pending for more than a year, mainly because Wegner went on the lam on the eve of his bench trial in October 2019. He was apprehended in Apache County, Ariz., after his girlfriend allegedly confessed in March to being in nearly daily phone contact with him and using his financial transaction card to supply him with cash while he was on the run, according to court documents.

Wegner was indicted by a grand jury in March of last year. He was accused of engaging in lewd conduct with a five-year-old girl in 2018. He was further accused of raping and engaging in lewd conduct between the fall of 2017 and early 2019, the indictment said.

Sheenagh Elizabeth Adams was also implicated in Wegner’s misconduct and was facing charges of aiding and abetting and felony injury to a child. Adams pleaded to the child endangerment charge and the aiding and abetting charge was dismissed in exchange for the plea, according to court documents.

Adams, 36, was charged with harboring a fugitive and compounding a crime by hindering prosecution. She pleaded guilty to the harboring charge and the compounding charge will be dismissed at sentencing.

Adams, who also remains in custody, is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.