Man gets nine years for felony domestic assault

The three charges carry a combined maximum penalty of up to 18 years in jail, but under the plea agreement entered in December, the state agreed to cap its request for jail time at 12 years.

Ian Sullivan, the chief deputy attorney for Rutland County, requested on Thursday a sentence of 11 and a half to 12 years to serve, while attorney Chris Davis, who represents Rodriguez, asked for a sentence of four to eight years with all of the time suspended and a 10-year period of probation.

Rodriguez pleaded guilty in December to assaulting someone who was 17 on Nov. 28, 2018. The teenager said he was protecting a female relative who Rodriguez had threatened.

The teenager said he told Rodriguez that he wouldn’t let Rodriguez hurt the woman and said he told Rodriguez he needed to calm down or leave.

The teenager told police he started to walk away but Rodriguez came up behind him, threw him to the ground, hit him and left.

On Dec. 3, 2018, the woman Rodriguez threatened Nov. 28, 2018, came to the Rutland City police station and reported that Rodriguez had assaulted her. Police noted there were visible signs that the woman had been injured.

She told police she had known Rodriguez for about 20 years, but he attacked her at the time after she told him she was ending their relationship. She said he punched her repeatedly, pulled her hair, strangled her and beat her head off of the refrigerator, cupboards and stove.

The woman said she tried to tell Rodriguez during the incident that their relationship was over “but he refused to accept it and stated that it wasn’t over because he didn’t say so.”

Before imposing the sentence, Judge David Fenster reviewed some of the facts from the two cases, as well as Rodriguez’s history of convictions for violent crimes including convictions in 2004 for kidnapping and aggravated domestic assault; a 2002 conviction for burglary into an occupied home, simple assault and aggravated assault with a weapon; and a 1998 conviction for assault and battery.

Fenster said the woman Rodriguez was convicted of assaulting spoke about previous incidents during which Rodriguez also had been violent and threatened her family and pets.

Fenster also noted an alleged assault that fractured the woman’s orbital socket, which happened in 2017 at a time that Rodriguez was under supervision by the Vermont Department of Corrections.

While Fenster said Rodriguez had taken responsibility for his actions, shown remorse, and indicated a willingness to seek help, he said he did not believe a probation sentence was appropriate.

“The concern is (Rodriguez) assaulted (the woman) while he was on supervision by the Department of Corrections,” Fenster said.

Davis had suggested a lengthy sentence would be hanging over Rodriguez’s head under the probationary sentence proposal but Fenster said if Rodriguez assaulted someone else, “by then, of course, it will be too late — someone else would potentially be harmed.”

“Given (Rodriguez’s) prior history of violence, that is too great a risk for the court to take under the circumstances,” he said.

The judge said he was unwilling to accept the state’s request because the length of time between 11 years and six month and 12 years was not enough of a difference between the minimum and the maximum to provide an incentive for Rodriguez to “engage in treatment and rehabilitation that might minimize the risk that he presents when he is ultimately released.”

Fenster sentenced Rodriguez to serve nine to 12 years for the felony charge and 12 to 18 months for each of the misdemeanor domestic assault charges but those sentences will be served at the same time as the longer sentence so they will not increase the length of the overall sentence.

“The harm you caused is unimaginable,” Fenster said.

Rodriguez said he accepted the sentence. “Whatever you gave me, I deserve,” he said.

While Rodriguez was sentenced to serve nine years, he has been held in jail since being arrested in December 2018 so he is likely to qualify for about three year and four months of time served already.

patrick.mcardle

@rutlandherald.com