Sentence Delivered Against Man Who Attacked a Nevada Judge in the Courtroom
by Simon Kent · BreitbartA felon who was captured on video attacking a presiding Nevada judge after spectacularly vaulting over her bench and desk was sentenced Tuesday to decades behind bars.
Deobra Redden has been ordered to serve between 26 and 65 years in a Nevada prison for the attack on Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus, KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported.
Redden, 31, pleaded guilty but mentally ill in September to attempted murder and other charges, ending his trial shortly after Holthus had testified she feared for her life when Redden vaulted over her four-foot-high bench and landed on her, all while flailing his arms.
As Breitbart News reported the attack happened Jan. 3 as Holthus was about to deliver Redden’s sentence in a separate felony battery case.
The violent scene was captured by courtroom video that showed the 62-year-old judge falling back from her seat against a wall as the aggrieved felon flung himself over her bench and grabbed her hair, toppling an American flag onto them.
Holthus suffered some injuries but was not hospitalized, courthouse officials said.
The 62-year-old slammed Redden as someone who “made a conscious decision to kill me and make every effort to succeed,” in a victim impact statement that was read by Clark County prosecutors, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
Redden’s defense lawyer Carl Arnold has said his client was not taking his prescribed medication to control his diagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the attack.
The guilty assailant pleaded in court Tuesday that he really did not intend to kill Holthus, KLAS-TV reported.
“I’m not making excuses for my actions, but I’m saying I’m not a bad person and I know that I did not intend to kill Mary Kay Holthus,” he said.
Redden will be eligible for parole sometime after 2050, KLAS-TV reported.