A prisoner at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla serving a 30-year sentence will spend about four more years in custody for assaulting a corrections officer.
Gregory Earl Barber, 45, pleaded guilty last week in Franklin County Superior Court in Pasco to one count of custodial assault for an April 2009 incident at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell.
Barber told Judge Craig Matheson that an officer was searching his cell and "went straight to my house and tore my house up."
He said he didn't want to assault the corrections officer, but he "had to defend" himself.
According to court documents, Barber got upset at Corrections Officer Scott Sevall and took a sock with a lock in it and destroyed two TV sets in his pod.
Barber also threw two garbage cans from the top tier of the pod onto to the first floor, then went down the stairs and walked toward Sevall.
Barber then tried to hit Sevall, but the officer was able to avoid the blow, documents said. He grabbed Barber around the waist, and several other officers responded to help control Barber.
In subsequent interviews with a prison investigator, Barber reportedly said he felt he was disrespected by Sevall and "that if he had a shank, that Officer Sevall would be dead," documents said.
In court, Barber apologized to the judge and apologized to the officer for assaulting him, but added the officer "disrespected me."
He said he was moved to the Walla Walla prison after the incident and spent two years in solitary in the prison's Intensive Management Unit.
"I've been out seven months. Since I've been out, I've not had one infraction," Barber told the judge, adding that he is going to school and "just trying to lay low."
Barber asked Matheson to give him the bottom-range sentence and let him serve it at the same time of his current sentence.
He is serving time after being convicted of three counts of first-degree theft, prison officials told the Herald.
Defense attorney Peyman Younesi also asked Matheson to not add more time to Barber's already long sentence.
He said his experience with Barber has been "heartwarming," because Barber has learned to take responsibility for his actions and wanted to plead guilty to this charge right from the start.
"Thirty years is what he's spending in Walla Walla. He's an individual who truly has nothing to lose to come back here and go to trial," Younesi said. "But he didn't do that."
Younesi said Barber has spent 12 year in prison, and this incident began because Barber was frustrated but didn't have the proper emotional help in prison to deal with those frustrations.
He asked Matheson to give Barber a sentence of four years and three months and run it concurrent to the current sentence because of Barber's "sense of responsibility" and "sense of maturity."
Deputy Prosecutor Teddy Chow recommended a sentence of four years and seven months and opposed the defense request.
"A concurrent sentence would leave this crime unpunished," Chow said.
Judge Matheson said he didn't think he had the authority to run the sentences concurrently, and noted Barber had a 2002 conviction for custodial assault.
But he did agree to the low-end sentence requested by the defense and said it seems fair to give Barber credit for the two years he spent in the Intensive Management Unit.
Matheson wasn't sure how the Department of Corrections officials would handle that, but he wrote it in on Barber's judgment and sentencing form.
"Good luck. I hope it is a real change in approach," Matheson said. "... It sounds like you just want to do your time and get out."
