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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 |
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Man gets 10 years in prison for sex assault
Published November 11, 2009
SEGUIN — A former Seguin man who fled to Honduras for most of a decade rather than face justice in a sexual assault case got 10 years in prison Tuesday.
District Judge Gary Steel heard testimony from the victim and from members of Michael J. Wade’s family before imposing the sentence in 274th Judicial District Court.
Wade, 41, was tried in April on sexual assault allegations in connection with the Feb. 26, 2000 incident in which he allegedly became enraged at a Seguin woman and kicked, beat and sexually assaulted her. He faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
That trial resulted in a hung jury, and 25th Judicial District Attorney Heather Hollub promised to try Wade again — and got him re-indicted on first-degree felony allegations of aggravated sexual assault. A first-degree felony is punishable by between five and 99 years in state prison.
In August, Wade pleaded guilty to the aggravated sexual assault charge in exchange for a sentence cap of 25 years, which Hollub and First Assistant District Attorney Larry Bloomquist argued for Tuesday.
Defense attorney James Millan argued that his client and the victim had had a difficult relationship prior to the incident that resulted in the charges, and that with the support of his family, Wade would be a good candidate for probation — and with a job would be able to contribute to the support of his estranged children.
In the end, Steel met the two sides in the middle.
With the two years Wade has already served awaiting trial, he could be eligible for parole in three years.
Bloomquist opened Tuesday’s sentencing hearing with the testimony of the victim, who described her feelings that night and what it’s been like in the years since trying to recover from the incident.
“Did you believe that you were going to be killed?” Bloomquist asked. The woman acknowledged that she had been.
She described nearly choking in her own blood and vomit and of having her head beat against the edge of a bath tub.
“What was going through your mind?” Bloomquist asked.
“I was just trying to survive‚ to get out of that situation,” she said. “My self-esteem was beat — it was gone — it was a very, very scary, nerve-wracking situation.”
Wade had been set for trial on July 26, 2000, but disappeared.
In December 2007, he turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa and was sent back to Seguin.
Word that Wade was coming back to Seguin brought all the fear back, the woman said.
“It was extremely shocking when he turned himself in,” she said. “It was like bringing a person back from the dead. It was scary again.”
But the trial was worse — it added the humiliation of recounting the experience in open court.
Millan pointed out that the relationship between Wade and the victim had been a difficult one. In a previous dispute, the attorney said, the victim had broken his client’s nose, which she acknowledged.
“Was that abuse?” Millan asked.
“It was self-defense,” the woman answered evenly. “It’s different.”
Millan put Wade’s brother-in-law, Davy Vestal, and his older brother, a state police trooper, on the witness stand.
Vestal said Wade would be able to live in his home and work in his family’s business if he was placed on probation.
“He’s ready to do some good work and do the right thing for his children,” Vestal told the court. Wade’s entire family would support him on probation and make sure he succeeded.
Wade’s older brother, Danny Wade, said his sibling wasn’t raised to be violent or abusive toward women.
He also testified he believed the entire experience had changed Wade.
“I think he’s realized since spending two years in jail, that’s not the way to conduct your life,” the witness said.
In his summation, Bloomquist asked Steel to impose the entire 25 years open under the plea agreement.
“Based on all the things this man has done to this woman, the only appropriate punishment is to sentence him to 25 years,” Bloomquist said.
Millan asked for probation.
“Judge, this was a very tumultuous relationship,” Millan said. “This didn’t happen in a vacuum. I’d like you to look at the context. He has four children, and I don’t know that they’re going to be better off if he’s in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He has a lot of very good people who care for him, and when you have good people who care about you, it’s a lot easier to do the right thing.”
In her rebuttal, Hollub disagreed.
“This perpetrator has thumbed his nose at this court for 10 years,” Hollub said. “He’s continued to manipulate the system over and over again.”
The victim, Hollub said, fled her home naked after being brutalized in front of her children.
“There was blood everywhere,” Hollub said. “This was torture. This is an important case, and we ask that you sentence him to 25 years so he can pay his debt to society.”
Afterwards, Hollub expressed disappointment with the sentence and with the outcome.
“We are extremely disappointed in the court’s sentence,” Hollub said. “In light of the fact that he absconded the jurisdiction for seven years and the brutality of the rape, we believe 25 years would be more just.”
Millan said he recommended his client make a deal and take his chances on the fairness of the judge in this case.
“What became clear from speaking to the jury after the last trial was it was going to be difficult if not impossible to get a “not guilty” verdict in this case, and the district attorney was not going to drop it,” Millan said.
Steel had already heard the trial, Millan noted — including information not brought before the jury that might tend to mitigate the charges against Wade.
“The judge heard all the evidence, he knows this case was originally charged as a second-degree felony and he’s heard a lot of things the jury didn’t get to hear. I always believed this case would be about punishment, and in my opinion it could have resulted in a high sentence,” Millan said. “I thought we’d have a better shot with Judge Steel than with the jury.”
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