TOPEKA, Kan. — A man convicted of holding a Topeka-area couple hostage is now suing his victims, claiming that they reneged on an agreement to hide him from police.
Jesse Dimmick is currently serving an 11-year sentence for bursting into the home of Jared and Lindsay Rowley in 2009 and holding the couple hostage at knifepoint while running from police, who wanted to talk to him about a man beaten to death in Colorado.
The couple escaped and called police after Dimmick fell asleep. Now, Dimmick has filed suit in court claiming that he and the couple had an oral agreement that they would hide him from police.
In a hand-written, notarized court document, Dimmick claims that after breaking into the Rowley home, he offered the couple an unspecified amount of money to hide him from police, who he claims were “trying to kill me.”
Dimmick claims that the couple agreed to hide him, “therefore forging a legally-binding oral contract.”
“Later, the Rowleys reneged on said oral contract, resulting in my being shot in the back by authorities,” said Dimmick in the court document.
Dimmick, who does not have an attorney and is representing himself in court, is seeking $235,000 in damages – $160,000 to cover his medical expenses and another $75,000 in pain and suffering.
The couple, who say that they did not accept any money from Dimmick, has asked the judge to dismiss the case.
Dimmick is now being held in an Colorado jail in connection to the September 2009 murder of a Brighton, Colorado, man.