Two NC criminal cases end in prison terms | Latest news
Of the criminal cases that the Independent has pursued, two have ended with years of imprisonment.
Martin, 37, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was sentenced to five years in prison on July 29 by the Navajo County Superior Court. Martin was charged with shooting vehicles along I-40 freeway in Navajo County, and the verdict followed Martin’s July 6th guilty plea to a July 6th charge of grievous bodily harm, a Class 3 crime, in which Martin admitted to have recklessly inflicted injury to that person while using a lethal weapon or instrument. This particular type of Class 3 crime, if not considered “dangerous or repetitive,” carries a prison sentence of between two and eight and three quarters of a year.
Martin served 3.5 years in the North Carolina Law Department as of September 2008, according to a pre-trial public safety assessment. sometimes referred to as the date rape drug and possession of stolen property.
The case began on September 30, 2020 when soldiers with the Arizona Department of Public Safety received a report about a man brandishing a gun at a gas station in Gallup, New Mexico, and the man was apparently on his way to Arizona. Shortly thereafter, DPS was contacted with reports that a driver of a white Dodge car with a blue stripe shot at vehicles on I-40 in Navajo County.
During the investigation, authorities received a report from a truck driver with a gunshot wound in the driver’s leg. The bullet apparently landed in and through the passenger door of the articulated lorry before it hit the driver. Two other vehicles were also hit: a second semi-trailer truck with three occupants and a minivan with two occupants, all of which were reportedly traveling on the freeway. None of the occupants of the other two vehicles was hit. One of the victims is said to have been a police officer on vacation.
The victims were able to provide a description of the shooter and the car. The next day, DPS soldiers found a car that matched the description given near Winslow and Martin was located nearby and arrested without incident. Apparently the vehicle was reported stolen from Georgia. As I said, Martin is from North Carolina.
It’s unclear whether authorities suspect Martin was the man reportedly brandishing a gun in Gallup, but he has been charged with a number of criminal offenses, including three other cases of aggravated assault, vehicle theft, identity theft and gun possession when prohibited it’s so. He is also said to have been parole when he committed this new crime, and that parole is likely the reason Martin was allegedly a banned gun owner. These other charges, as well as criminal charges that the offense he confessed to be guilty of were dangerous or repetitive, were dismissed or not formally brought by the prosecution under the agreement.
The law enforcement version of events, as extracted from court records, depicts a mad person acting unpredictably, recklessly and very dangerous, acts that are inconsistent with drug use, and Martin’s story with drugs. In addition, the aforementioned public safety assessment underscored the drug issue by recommending random drug tests in case Martin was released pending indictment.
However, Martin was not released, the court kept him in prison since his arrest and Martin counts 301 days of the new prison sentence for that time.
Benjamin Emmanuel Carrasco
HOLBROOK – Benjamin Carrasco, 23, of Lakeside, was arrested on June 3 for allegedly shooting his pregnant girlfriend in a Linden house awaiting trial in the Navajo County Jail.
In an unusually prompt resolution of the case, Carrasco pleaded guilty by plea agreement on July 19 during an early hearing set for a different purpose. In fact, the pleading came about so quickly that the exact terms of the agreement and charges or charges on which he pleaded guilty are only now making their way into the electronic public record, and neither are the exact terms of his August 17th sentence known.
According to Show Low Police, the case began when Carrasco quarreled with the woman described as his girlfriend at a Show Low restaurant, and they both then traveled to the residence. According to the police, Carrasco forced her out of a vehicle and hit the woman in the face about 15 times with an open hand and closed fist. When she tried to get somehow help, she fell and Carrasco is said to have shot her in the abdomen with a 9mm pistol. He and his girlfriend were later located at a Holbrook motel, where the authorities arrested him. There is no public information about the victim (or baby) condition.
Available court records indicate that the Navajo County Prosecutor’s Office filed a direct complaint against Carrasco on June 7th, alleging attempted murder and kidnapping, Class 2 crimes, and grievous bodily harm with a deadly weapon, a class crime 3, goes. Then, about a week later, the district attorney filed a standard notice in the court asking for an increased sentence, citing an Arizona judgment law that provides an additional two years in prison on top of any sentence the guidelines mandate for being the victim in the case was pregnant.
In the end, Carrasco pleaded guilty to “causing bodily harm by using a lethal weapon: a weapon,” according to the agreement. The charges of attempted murder and kidnapping were dropped. He will serve a multi-year term in the corrections department, ranging from two years at the low end to 8.75 years at the high end. The crime carries a “presumed sentence” of three and a half years, and Carrasco vowed that “he was not convicted in any jurisdiction under any name and was not on parole or parole at the time of the offense,” the informed consent said.
This last part is odd because a June 13 public safety assessment that is helping the court determine whether a defendant should be released pending indictment outcome states that Carrasco has a previous crime. That conviction is due to come before the Pinal County Superior Court for possession of drug paraphernalia in a 2016 case. A closer look at this case, however, reveals an admission of guilt in a “preliminary injunction court”, which at the time could have been cleared as a crime for simple cases of possession of drug paraphernalia.
However, Carrasco appears to have been a one-man crime wave on the streets. The review reports no fewer than ten felony convictions for primarily traffic-related offenses in Show Low and Pinetop and eight pending traffic-related charges in Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside, Round Valley and Apache Junction. These non-criminal traffic convictions are not relevant for a felony conviction.
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