May 31, 2022 is a night I'll never forget.
That's the night my wife and I were assaulted in our own home by our daughter and ex felon suboxone taking boyfriend.
That's the night I had to draw my Sig P365 in fear of my own life and hold the person that attacked us at bay until the police arrived. I had no other choice. They'd taken our cell phones and barricaded themselves inside one of the bedrooms with our grandchildren. I knew my daughter had a Beretta 9mm in the rom and the ex felon kept yelling "I'm gonna kill you MF'er!"
When the police arrived I complied with all commands they gave me until I was out of the house and my wife and I were sitting on the porch with 5 cops around us and the rescue squad trading the various cuts we had from the altercation in our basement.
We told them what happened. How we had found out earlier that day about what a lose this ex felon was and how I immediately said he needed to leave, my daughters refusal to make him leave. How my wife and I had gone down to the basement to try and let the situation cool off and how our daughter came down after us and continued the argument and how the ex felon followed her down.
I told them that I'd told the ex felon that this was a family conversation and he needed to take his ass back upstairs. I told them my daughter was the first one to make a move and put her hands on me, and that the ex felon had attacked me at the same time. My wife told them how then had tried to barricade us in our own basement and had taken our cell phones.
I told them repeatedly I had feared for my life. We told the cops we wanted them arrested for assault. They listened, nodded, gave myself and my wife a breathalyzer and continued to stand around us on the front porch while my daughter, our grandkids and this felon were escorted out of the house through the garage.
My wife asked if she could go inside and calm down one of our dogs who had been barking for almost an hour because of all of the ruckus and the strangers in his house. They let her go in to do that. About 10 minutes after she went in they told me to stand up and put me in handcuffs.
I was arrested and taken to jail charged with four felony counts of wanton endangerment and two misdemeanor counts of assault.
My wife didn't know I was gone for almost an hour after they transported me to jail. She had come out to check on me thinking I'd still be there...only to discover I was gone. the only excuse was "we thought you knew".
I asked the arresting officer how come I was the one going to jail when I was the one assaulted in my own home and feared for my life.
"You were the one that pulled your gun" was his only reply.
For those that don't know, Kentucky is a Constitutional Carry state and they have very strong castle defense/stand your ground laws.
Never the less there I was. Right before they took my phone while I was being processed, I called the Critical Response Team at USCCA and told them what had happened and that I needed help. I found out later they had an attorney in contact with my wife within 15 minutes of my call to them, at 1:15 in the morning.
I spent 18 hours in the county jail, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Bad food, 20 of us in one of the drunk tanks and oh by the way they billed me for my stay after I got out.
I had to go through the embarrassment/shame of my wife seeing me in court not only in a prison jumpsuit but in handcuffs and leg irons. I asked the judge for a reduction in bail. She denied it with the comment that "If it were up to me it would have been higher". This same judge presided over all of the hearings in my case except for the one on Dec. 1st.
My attorney was awesome. He flat out told me that "the wrong person went to jail". His immediate strategy was to request to review the body cam footage and if it lined up with what I was telling him, push for an immediate dismissal of all charges. I signed the contract with him and away we went.
I have to stop here for a minute and all about USCCA. I truly believe they are the only reason I'm free today. They not only reimbursed me for the $2,500 cash bail I had to pay, they covered the $40k retainer fee for my lawyer. That $20 a month I've been paying them since 2017 paid off in a big way.
The first thing the county prosecutor said when my lawyer said I wasn't going to accept a plea down to misdemeanors was "What does he want? An apology?" Originally I said no but my feelings on that have modified over the months.
Hearings kept getting delayed by the county, the can kept getting kicked down the road because of various excuses like forgetting to subpoena the police officer and his body cam footage, one time the assistant prosecutor working the case that she "wasn't prepared to go to court" on my case. One time my attorney called me and said "don't even bother coming to court today, they aren't ready".
Finally in October we had a hearing. I didn't get to testify, to this day I still haven't been put under oath and been able to tell my side of the story. The cop got up there and said his piece. He couldn't really answer any of my attorney's direct questions about the night in question. He standard answer was "I'm not sure, I'd have to review my notes.". My wife got up there, told the same story we'd been telling the entire time. I'll admit it was fun watching the prosecutors eyes bug out a couple times when my wife brought up things that had happened that he wasn't aware of in the reports he had in front of him. When the arguments were finished, my attorney said (correctly) there wasn't enough evidence to warrant the charges and that the case should be dismissed immediately. The judge said no, there was enough evidence and bound the case over for the grand jury.
From 28 November to 1 December I kinda hung in limbo waiting to hear when the grand jury was going to meet. I was ready to go before them and tell my side of what happened.
I got a call from pre-trial services last Thursday. I'd been required to check in with them every Friday since June. This was Thursday so I know I hadn't missed a check in.
The lady on the other end of the line said "I've got some good news for you. The grand jury met today."
After I got over the shock of them having met and I wasn't notified (my attorney wasn't either) I asked her what the good news was.
"You've got an early Christmas present, the grand jury returned a no true bill on your case. You're charges have been dismissed."
I had to have her repeat that to me again and then I started to cry. I thanked her for the good news and she actually thanked me for being such a good client of theirs. After I hung up I called my wife downstairs, told her the good news and we just held onto each other for what felt like an eternity. Once I recovered from the shock, I texted my lawyer and let him know.
He's going to contact the PD here in town today to get them to release my pistol from their evidence lockup. Because of a weird quirk in Kentucky law, he has to wait 60 days, but my attorney is going to file a motion to have my record expunged.
This strange scary nightmare is over. This part of it anyway. I've lost two jobs because of this. The Army chose not to renew my position with the start of the new FY back in October because of my legal situation. I landed a job back in radio a couple weeks later, but when my background check came back it showed the pending charges and they terminated me.
The worst part of this is the relationship we've lost with our two grandkids. Their dad has custody of them now and he totally believed our daughters side of the story (that we'd provoked everything and I was the aggressor etc). He's cut off all contact between us and the boys. Sadly there is no USCCA for family law, so it's going to be an uphill and expensive battle to regain access to them. Meanwhile our daughter and the ex felon moved back to Illinois where the boys are and get to see them all the time.
The emotional strain of going through a situation like mine are indescribable. Faith family and friends go me through it. Got us through it I should say because this all had a direct impact on my wife as well. She's been a rock. Time basically stopped in my world for the last 7 months and there's no way for me to get that time back that I feel I was robbed of. The only thing I can do is get back up and dust myself off.
