The 36-year-old boyfriend of Wyoming nursing student Irene Gakwa will spend up to the next six years in prison and will have to pay $13,200 in fines and restitution after pleading guilty to stealing her money, using her credit cards and deleting her email account after she vanished in 2022.
On Wednesday, Campbell County District Court Judge James M. “Mike” Causey sentenced Nathan Hightman to three- to six-year prison sentences for felony theft and unlawful use of a credit card convictions at his sentencing hearing, the Gillette News Record reports.
The sentences will run concurrently with a suspended two- to three-year sentence for crimes against intellectual property.
In lieu of that sentence, the judge sentenced Hightman to three years of supervised probation after he is released from prison.
The judge also ordered Hightman to pay $13,200 in fines, fees and restitution.
Hightman must pay fines of $2,000 for each of the three convictions, the newspaper reported, and the judge suspended one of the fines.
He also ordered Hightman to pay $3,666.46 in restitution for the money he stole from Gakwa’s checking account and $3,230.65 for what he charged on her credit cards, according to Gillette News Record.
Hightman was ordered to pay $825 in other fees and $1,500 for the cost of his public defender.
The sentencing comes just three months after Hightman pleaded guilty to three of the five felonies he was accused of — one count each of theft, unlawful use of a credit card and crimes against intellectual property.
Hightman entered the plea in March, less than a week before his 10-day trial was expected to begin on April 3. In exchange for his guilty pleas, prosecutors agreed to drop two of the related charges.
Gakwa’s two brothers, who live in the U.S., and her parents, who live in her native Kenya, are relieved that Hightman is heading to prison.
“We are happy with the outcome of the current charges,” Gakwa’s brother, Kennedy Wainaina said. “However we are still wondering what happened to our sister, Irene.”
Gakwa was 32 when she vanished in Feb. 2022 while she was living with Hightman in Gillette. The last time her family heard from her was on Feb. 24, 2022, when she spoke to her parents in Kenya in a video call on WhatsApp.
Hightman told police that one night in 2022, the woman known to be a shy homebody packed up her belongings, got into an SUV and left the home they shared.
He said he had no idea where she was.
After his arrest on May 11, 2022, Hightman initially pleaded not guilty to two counts of felony theft, two counts of crimes against intellectual property and one count of unlawful use of a credit card, according to the court clerk.
He was accused of stealing nearly $3,700 from Gakwa’s checking account, charging $604.65 on her Visa card and maxing out her Capital One card in the amount of $3,230.65, court records show, the Gillette News Record reports. He emptied her bank account and used her credit cards after Gakwa, went missing. He told police he took her money so she would contact him when she ran out of money.
He remains a “person of interest” in her missing person case but has not been charged in connection with her disappearance.
Anyone with information related to Gakwa’s disappearance is asked to contact the Gillette Police Department at 307-682-5155.
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