SavageEagle
Grandmaster
- Apr 27, 2008
- 19,568
- 38
Got this in an email, so I don't have a source website for it yet. Sorry. I thought this was hilarious because the subject line said "Look how MEAN this Judge is!" (subject line was a joke)
EDIT: Looked up source: Judge drops hammer on Gendren
EDIT: Looked up source: Judge drops hammer on Gendren
Posted: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 8:10 pm
By ANDREA HOWE andrea@pdclarion.com | 0 comments
PRINCETON — The jail commander who brought him to court threatened to stand him in a corner, but the judge who sentenced William B. Gendren IV to five years in jail Wednesday promised he’d be stuck in a jail cell with no work release, “trusty” or other privileges.
Gendren, 20, got the five-year sentence in a plea agreement covering 15 years stemming from four unrelated cases.
He told the judge Wednesday he would have wanted to die if two toddlers in the truck he forced off the road last month had been injured.
But Gibson Circuit Judge Jeff Meade wasn’t sympathetic to Gendren’s remorse.
He told him to get his act together before he killed someone or someone killed him, then castigated him for reckless behavior that included:
• two counts of dealing marijuana;
• two battery charges;
• criminal recklessness with a vehicle, operating a vehicle with meth in his system, driving without proof of insurance, false registration, unlawful use of a police radio and improper headlights;
• possession of anhydrous ammonia, drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine.
Most of the charges are related to an April 6 chase when Gendren forced a truck with two toddlers as passengers off McCarty Road, blew through highway intersections, drove the wrong way on U.S. 41, attempted to swerve into a squad car, turned onto Lyles Station Road back to Princeton and north on Embree Street, where he threw a propane tank filled with anhydrous ammonia out of the car.
He fled on foot after driving his car into a field, but police caught up with him, according to the charging information.
Gendren also admitted to an August 2008 charge of dealing marijuana, and December 2009 and March charges of battery.
He said the March battery charge stemmed from an incident where he carried a woman out of a house, but she slipped and hit her head.
“The witness says you body slammed her,” the judge replied.
Meade told Gendren the family he forced off the road deserves an apology at the very least, and so do his parents.
“I want you to turn around and apologize to your mom and dad right now. You put them through all this crap,” Meade told Gendren.
Gendren cried as he told his parents he was sorry. He told the judge his father had kicked him out of the house for doing drugs three times.
“They did everything they possibly could,” the judge told Gendren. “Look in the mirror. There is where your problem comes from.
“What I find the most egregious is trying to run a family with small kids off the highway. That is despicable,” Meade told him.
“Beating on women. Looks to me like you are a thug. You wouldn’t do that in my house,” said Meade.
The judge warned Gendren not to even consider asking for a sentence modification. “You need to do every single day of this sentence. You’ve got some real issues that you need to address before you kill somebody. If you keep going down this path, somebody is going to kill you if you don’t kill yourself.
“If you had come in my house and tried to take my gun,” he said, referring to the other battery charge, “you wouldn’t be leaving on your feet.”
The judge noted with disgust that with good time credit, Gendren could be out of jail in two and a half years. The four cases come after Gendren spent time in a boot camp, said the judge. “If the law would allow me, I’d come down there right now and whip you right now, do you understand?
“These charges should be higher. The state charged as high as they can, but you need to do 10 years,” he said.
Gendren said he planned to use the jail time beginning some classes to “get off the dope and get my life together.”
Meade reiterated that Gendren’s latest actions put innocent children, ages 4 and 2, at risk. “Because you have an addiction? No, no, no, you’ve made some really bad choices, but they’re your choices.
“If you come back in here again, you’ll get the max,” Meade warned.
“I want you to sit in that (jail) day room for two and a half years. I want you to think about your life and their lives and the people you put at risk. Good luck to you, Mr. Gendren, and don’t come back here again.”
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