OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Despite pleas for leniency, a former Army Ranger has been sentenced to a decade in prison for a bar brawl stabbing that left a man injured.
The Olympian reports that (http://bit.ly/w1wAoX) family and friends of 22-year-old Alfred Joseph Sanchez pleaded with Thurston County Superior Court Judge Christine Pomeroy to have leniency because of his previous clean criminal record and three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But Pomeroy sided with prosecutors and handed out the 10-year sentence, saying that Sanchez’s actions were “reckless.”
Sanchez served with the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. He had been found guilty at trial of first-degree assault with a deadly weapon in December for the March 28, 2009, stabbing of Brad Merten.
