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Former UM Football Player Sentenced for Assaulting Olney Man

By Beacon Staff

MISSOULA – A former Grizzly football player was given a three-year deferred sentence and 21 days in jail Tuesday for this role in an assault that left a University of Montana student unconscious and with a broken jaw.

Cody von Appen pleaded no contest in February to felony criminal endangerment for the Sept. 19 assault on Jesse Johnson of Olney. District Judge Dusty Deschamps insisted that von Appen return to Missoula to serve the jail time during his winter break from college in Arizona.

Von Appen, the son of former assistant coach Fred von Appen, was one of three Grizzly football players alleged to have been involved in the assault on the UM campus. Justin Montelius pleaded guilty in March to misdemeanor charges of negligent endangerment and unlawful possession of alcohol. Andrew Douglass has pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault.

Montelius said at his plea hearing that he called von Appen and Douglass after getting into an altercation with someone on campus. But Montelius said his teammates assaulted the wrong man when they arrived to back him up.