Heath Dixey, 34, of Fort Hall, Idaho, entered a guilty plea yesterday in U.S. District Court in Pocatello to a charge of making a false statement to a Fort Hall Police Department detective during the course of an assault investigation. Dixey appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush.

According to court documents, on July 28, 2010, Fort Hall police were investigating an apparent assault on a man found in Fort Hall who appeared to have been pushed out of a moving vehicle. The man had no memory of the incident. When police questioned Dixey about the man, Dixey said that he had pushed the man out of his vehicle. Dixey was later charged with assault resulting in serious bodily injury. Dixey later admitted that he had not pushed the man, but had left his two-year-old child unattended in a vehicle and the child had put the vehicle in gear. Because the idle on the car was high, the vehicle moved rapidly and hit the man, causing his injuries. Dixey did not want anyone to know that he had left his child unattended in the vehicle with the motor running, so he told police that he had pushed the man out of his vehicle.

Sentencing is scheduled in federal court in Pocatello on August 3, 2011, before Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill.

The case was investigated by the Fort Hall Police Department.