A Yaak resident with a criminal past was sentenced to serve time during a sentencing hearing Monday in Lincoln County District Court.

Caleb Daniel Covey, 40, received a 15-year sentence, with 10 years suspended, after he pleaded guilty to one felony count of burglary. He received credit for 232 days in custody. Unless the victim in the incident initiates contact with Covey, he must avoid contact with her.

The defendant did not have a statement, but he spoke clearly while offering his plea and after being asked if he understood the current proceeding.

Covey, who has been held in the Lincoln County Detention Center since his arrest November 10, 2025, for allegedly assaulting a woman at a Pipe Creek residence, will be considered for placement at Connections Corrections Program, a Montana facility in Butte, following a request by defense attorney Mathew M. Stevenson.

A plea deal called for an amended charge of burglary. Covey also faced a petition to revoke his probation related to a wild January 2024 chase in Montana and Idaho that spanned three counties. That was dropped when Covey agreed to a global resolution involving the current case and one from 2018.

Covey didn’t get jail time for the police chase when visiting Flathead County District Judge Amy Eddy gave him a 20-year suspended sentence in June 2025, nor after the revocation hearing in late 2025. He pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, April 7, 2025, in court to seven counts of felony criminal mischief and one felony count of criminal endangerment. Other charges were dismissed following the April 3 plea deal between Zwang and Sean Hinchey, Covey’s attorney at the time. 

Covey originally faced decades of confinement at the state hospital in Warm Springs, but the sad state of affairs there played a large role in Eddy’s decision to not give him time in custody. The beleaguered facility has been the focus of many media accounts detailing its failings that included the deaths of a number of patients.

Then, Covey attorney Nate Holloway argued for a probationary sentence at the June 2025 hearing. That argument included the fact that Covey lives with his parents, Larry and Pam Covey, and works on their property.

“His mother, Pam Covey, was a nurse and she closely monitors the defendant’s daily activities and prepares and administers his medications every day,” Holloway wrote.

But in court documents filed with the sentence revocation, it appeared the home situation wasn’t going well.

State Probation and Parole officer Alice Rhodes filed an affidavit Nov. 17, 2025, in district court detailing Covey’s alleged probation violations.

One condition of Covey’s probation was sticking to his prescribed medications, but he is alleged to have obtained Wellbutrin and began abusing it. Dr. Michael Breslow, a physician at Northwest Community Health Center, expressed his concern in an Oct. 21, 2025, call to Rhodes about how dangerous Covey is when he is on Wellbutrin.

On Nov. 10, Dr. Breslow, in a text conversation with Rhodes, said “as long as he is taking bupropion, his antipsychotic medication will not be effective.”

Covey also violated his release terms after allegedly speaking to Misty Surman, a county jail inmate at the time, about how to communicate without getting caught and so he could get her one of her prescriptions.

Judge Eddy also issued a new order that Covey have no contact with his mother, Pam. It was revealed in a November 2025 hearing she drove him to the residence where the alleged assault earlier this month. 

Covey's past includes two run-ins with law officers dating back to 2015. He was arrested on April 23, 2015 following a domestic disturbance at his home.