A 32-year-old Sherwood man who abducted his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint and took her to a Cross County dirt road where he fired off the weapon while threatening to kill himself was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday.
The penalty puts Brandon Wallace about six weeks from being eligible to apply for parole, with credit for the 678 days -- 22 1/2 months -- he's spent in jail awaiting trial.
Wallace, 32, denied wrongdoing, telling police the 35-year-old woman went with him willingly because she wanted to hear what he had to say.
She testified he subjected her to a four-hour, round-trip ordeal and ranted and raved about killing himself, a nightmare that culminated with Wallace taking her to a dirt road near Parkin where he fired every bullet in his gun while berating her.
Wallace returned the woman, a mother of four, safely to her home, where she gathered up her children and went to police.
His lawyers depicted the November 2014 ordeal as a failed suicide attempt sparked by a sudden downturn in his life. The only person he thought about harming that day was himself, they told the jury.
"Yes, he had a firearm. To kill himself," defense attorney Lou Marczuk said in his closing argument, asking jurors to recall Wallace's surprise when he learned she had accused him of abducting her. "It's a one-witness case. [That woman's] credibility is what this case is about."
The Pulaski County jury deliberated about four hours Wednesday to find Wallace guilty of kidnapping and aggravated assault on a family member. The father of three, who has no prior felony convictions, faced up to 51 years in prison, in part because some of the crime occurred in the presence of the woman's 2-year-old son.
Circuit Judge Leon Johnson imposed the six-year sentence, one year more than the minimum five years, on the basis of the sentencing recommendation of the jury, which would have allowed him to sentence Wallace up to 10 years in prison.
Though barred from telling jurors what caused the couple to separate, and upset Wallace, prosecutors were allowed to disclose that the situation involved police.
A couple of days before Wallace abducted the woman, her 13-year-old daughter had reported to police that Wallace had been molesting her for months, and detectives had just begun their investigation when the woman was kidnapped. Wallace was eventually charged with rape and second-degree sexual assault and is awaiting trial on those charges, which can carry a sentence of up to life in prison.
At the request of the defense, the judge had barred prosecutors from disclosing the sex-crime charges against Wallace. The judge ruled the sexual-assault allegations were too inflammatory and might cause jurors to jump to conclusions about his guilt without giving the evidence of the kidnapping appropriate consideration.
Prosecutors were allowed to play for the jury an edited, 31-minute police interview with Wallace in which he said he wanted to kill himself because he was losing everything he loved, his children, his family, his job and his plans for the future.
In closing arguments Wednesday, deputy prosecutor Jayme Butts-Hall asked jurors whether they thought the woman was telling the truth.
"What this case boils down to is, do you believe [the woman]? Do you believe her version of events?" the prosecutor said.
She urged jurors to disregard defense insinuations that the woman didn't make any effort to get away from Wallace. She asked them to remember how Wallace had lured the woman into meeting with him by promising police would be present, then ambushed her with the gun held to her back in her garage. He had the weapon pointed at her for almost the entire time they were together that day, Butts-Hall said.
The woman was focused on persuading Wallace not to kill her and getting home to her children, the youngest of which was a 2-year-old boy whom the defendant had forced her to leave at home unattended in his crib, the prosecutor said. She had to wait to make sure her children were with her before she could get help, the prosecutor said.
With Wallace admitting he had a gun, admitting the woman had been scared of the weapon and his talking about how he wanted to kill himself, how could jurors believe she went with him of her own free will, deputy prosecutor Ashley Bowen asked jurors.
"No one willingly gets into a car with someone who shows them a gun. No one willingly goes along to watch someone kill themselves," she said. "No one willingly leaves their child alone."
Metro on 09/22/2016