A gang member has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for a 2008 attack in which a Vancouver man was driven to Moulton Falls Park, beaten, thrown off a footbridge and left for dead.
Michael Harvey, 25, pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court on Monday to first-degree attempted assault and third-degree assault relating to the Nov. 2, 2008, attack of Joshua Smith.
The cases of two co-defendants, Jeremiah D. Anderson, 20, and Shawn W. Rogers, 18, have not yet been resolved. Both defendants have a Dec. 14 trial date.
Superior Court Judge Robert Harris sentenced Harvey to 168 months, with credit for a year spent in the Clark County Jail.
Harvey’s lengthy criminal record — he has eight prior felony convictions — elevated the sentence, said Deputy Prosecutor Tony Golik.
Harvey was initially charged with first-degree attempted murder, but prosecutors agreed to drop the charge in exchange for Harvey pleading guilty to assault.
“The victim was pretty badly injured, but there was probably room for argument about whether they intended to injure him or kill him,” Golik said.
The attack was gang-related, and investigators believe the three attacked Smith because he violated gang rules.
Sheriff’s deputies said Harvey is affiliated with skinheads, and Anderson and Rogers are affiliated with the Juggalos, which follow the Detroit rap/horror group Insane Clown Posse.
According to court documents, Smith told detectives that he had been involved with Juggalos for years. Smith told detectives that around midnight Nov. 1, he was on Fourth Plain Boulevard when he was picked up by the suspects and driven to Moulton Falls Park, about three miles south of Yacolt.
After he was beaten and thrown off a footbridge, Smith said, he made his way back up to a parking lot. His assailants stomped him a second time and threw him down a ravine, according to an affidavit by Clark County sheriff’s Detective Eric O’Dell.
After the attackers left, Smith flagged down a motorist and was taken to Southwest Washington Medical Center. He was treated for a punctured lung and stab wounds.
Smith told detectives that the assailants kept calling him a “transformer,” or someone who switches gang affiliations.
