Readers are undoubtedly wondering about the stark difference in the length of sentences handed down (by the same judge) to convicted child-rapists Larry L. Grubb and Joseph W. Giuliano.

I’ll do what I can to explain and clear up any confusion. Here’s the rundown:

Larry Grubb was originally charged with 8 counts of first degree child rape, which was alleged to have occurred over a two year period. The first-degree nature of the charge is because the child was younger than 12 years old, as state law determines. He was found guilty by a trial jury of seven of the eight counts.

At his sentencing, state guidelines put his standard sentencing range at 240 to 318 months. There is a reason for this, which I can explain, but I encourage readers to look up the offense score sheets at the State Sentencing Guideline Commission’s Web site. The address is http://www.sgc.wa.gov/PUBS/Adult_Manual/Manual_2008_Section_3.pdf.

Basically, the prosecutor has to calculate an offender score to determine the sentencing range. Each sex offense conviction is multiplied by three to calculate the score. (Other felony convictions would count toward the score as well, but Grubb only has prior gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor convictions.) Since legally he’s considered to have six prior sex offense convictions (six of the seven first-degree child rape convictions), multiply that by three and you get an offender score of 18. Scores of 9 or higher automatically get sentenced in the 240-318 month range. Grubb was thus sentenced to 280 months in prison.

Giuliano is a slightly (but importantly) different case. He was charged with three counts of third degree child rape (the third degree is based on the girl’s age, because she was between 14 and 16 years old during the abuse). Like Grubb, and every person convicted of a felony, the prosecutor has to calculate his offender score.

Similar to Grubb, each sex offense conviction is multiplied by three. Since he has two prior sex offense convictions (two of the three third-degree child rape convictions), his offender score is six. Offenders with a score of six face a standard range of 46 to 60 months in prison. Thus, Giuliano was sentenced to four years (48 months) in prison.

Now, you may be wondering why Giuliano was charged with only three counts versus Grubb’s eight. As Mac Setter, the prosecutor in Giuliano’s case, explains it, it is standard practice to charge fewer crimes if the length of the abuse was shorter, as Giuliano’s was. Grubb abused his granddaughter for two years and gets eight charges. Giuliano abuses his victim for six months and gets three charges.

Thus, the difference in sentences really comes down to the number of charges filed (and the resulting number of convictions) and the age of the victims. Once convicted, however, sentencing is largely determined by guidelines set by a state commission.

Hope this helps.

Joseph W. Giuliano, the former Deputy Chief Patrol Agent with the U.S. Border Patrol’s Blaine sector, pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree child rape last month and has his sentencing scheduled for June 25.

Until then, Giuliano will be serving his pre-sentence confinement on work release in custody of the Whatcom County Jail, according to filings in Whatcom County Superior Court. Giuliano has been in the jail’s custody since he pleaded guilty April 23, according to jail records.

Lanette E. Smith is set to be tried next week on eight counts of animal-abuse for allegedly abusing llamas she kept on her property on the 6000 block of Olson Road in March 2007.

Her case has been pending in Whatcom County Superior Court for two years but is ready for trial, according to court filings. Jury selection should begin May 18 or 19.

Apr 28 2009 9:45AM
Location: 4400 BLK MERIDIAN ST
Offense: TROUBLE WITH A PERSON

Management at Walmart reports a man yelling at employees and claiming to be invisible. The man was found to be quite visible and denied being disorderly. He was identified and sent on his way.

A man arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents on April 15 on suspicion of trying to smuggle 149 pounds of marijuana into the United States from Canada will be tried in Whatcom County Superior Court.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Craig Chambers charged Eddie C. Rivera-Sanchez, 27, with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, marijuana, with intent to deliver.

According to Chambers’ probable cause affidavit:

The agents responded to activity along the U.S.-Canadian border north of Halverstick Road. Walking up a trail from Halverstick toward the border, the agents found three duffel bags containing the 149 pounds of marijuana.

Several hours later, the agents located Rivera-Sanchez 300 yards away from the trail. He was wearing socks over his shoes to mask his footprints and admitted that he was promised $500 to smuggle the drugs in to the United States. He told the agents he was with two other men who fled back into Canada.

Wesley N. Legere, 32, pleaded guilty in Whatcom County Superior Court April 16 to stabbing a Bellingham man over some beer the two had recently purchased.

Legere pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and Judge Steven Mura sentenced him to nine months in the Whatcom County Jail.

According a probable-cause affidavit from Senior Deputy Prosecutor Jim Hulbert, Legere and the other man, Brooks Winebarger, purchased a 12-pack of beer from the Haggen in Fairhaven.

They walked one block north to an empty box car, and Legere produced a knife and demanded that he be given the beer. Winebarger refused, the two began fighting and Legere stabbed him. Winebarger’s injuries required him to be transported to St. Joseph Hospital, Hulbert notes in his affidavit.

The new chief of Whatcom County Fire District No. 18, Scott Crowe, will be able to use the department chief’s truck 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - so long as he stays within a 30 mile response-radius of the district.

The District 18 board of commissioners voted to give Crowe this authority at its regular meeting Wednesday, April 15. Crowe has been the district’s fire chief on a part-time basis since March.

Hung Dihn Tran, a Ferndale man convicted of dealing marijuana to undercover agents working with the Northwest Regional Drug Task Force, is set to be sentenced on Monday, April 20 in Judge Steven Mura’s courtroom.

A Whatcom County Superior Court jury has found a Ferndale man guilty of dealing marijuana to undercover agents with the Northwest Regional Drug Task Force.

After a two-day trial, the jury found Hung Dihn Tran guilty of one count of dealing marijuana on April 8. His sentencing date has yet to be set.

The agents arrested Tran in January after purchasing the marijuana from him. Tran had driven to a home on the 3600 of West Rusley Drive in Bellingham to get the drugs, which he then sold to the agents, according to a probable cause affidavit from Whatcom County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Craig Chambers.

The agents then obtained a warrant to search the home and found 47 pounds of processed marijuana and equipment used in a growing operation, according to Chambers’ affidavit. They arrested the resident, Tin Trung Tran, on suspicion of possesing and dealing marijuana.

Tin Tran had allegedly sold to undercover agents working with the task force in November and December of 2008. His trial date is set for June 30.

Whatcom County’s recent rash of Ecstasy-related incidents continued Thursday, April 9, as detectives working with the Northwest Regional Drug Task Force arrested a Blaine man who allegedly sold them 167 Ecstasy pills over the last two months.

The detectives, working undercover, arranged to purchase 10 pounds of marijuana, worth an estimated $32,000, from the man near downtown Bellingham Thursday, according to Task Force Commander Rick Sucee. The detectives arrested him without incident after completing the deal, according to Sucee.

This arrests follows several large Ecstasy seizures along the U.S.-Canadian border in the last three weeks. The U.S. Border Patrol found $5 million worth of the drug abandoned on smuggling routes east of Sumas.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found another $1 million in Ecstasy pills stashed in the gutted spare tire of a Canadian man as he attempted to cross the border at the Pacific Highway Crossing in Blaine.

Sucee said the investigation into this arrest will continue, but he added that more arrests are unlikely.

Washington State Patrol troopers and detectives from the Bellingham Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit and the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Interdiction Unit assisted in this investigation, according to Sucee.

After allegedly robbing the Coffee Cabin on the 2000 block of Grandview Road at gunpoint on Feb. 8, Damian L. Johnston escaped apprehension for more than a month.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested him March 27. According to charging documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court, Johnston’s big mouth may have been his undoing.

According to a probable cause affidavit from Senior Deputy Prosecutor Anna Gigliotti, deputies were able to connect Johnston to the robbery because he boasted of robbing the coffee stand to other people.

When interviewed by detectives, Johnston also admitted to the robbery.

According to Gigliotti’s affidavit, Johnston kicked in the coffee stand’s door wearing a ski mask, carrying an airsoft gun and demanded money. He made off with more than $500 in the heist, Gigliotti’s affidavit alleges.

A two-car collision on East Badger Road near Nooksack Road north of Everson left one person with minor injuries, Friday, Feb. 27, said Trooper Keith Leary of the Washington State Patrol.

The accident occurred in the eastbound lane of Badger Road about a mile east of Highway 9 at about 5:15 p.m., Leary said. The lane was blocked for about an hour, and the State Department of Transportation was brought in to direct traffic, Leary said.

The person, who was not identified, was transported to St. Joseph Hospital.

Several readers have been wondering about Whatcom County Prosecutor Dave McEachran’s recommended sentence for Derek Collier, who recently pleaded guilty to murdering David Datskiy in Whatcom County Superior Court.

Collier’s sentencing is set for Feb. 24 at 8:45 a.m. in Superior Court. Collier has 9 prior felony convictions, including three as an adult and six as a juvenile.

With this criminal history, Washington state’s sentencing guidelines determines that he should be sentenced between 216 and 316 months in prison. McEachran is recommending he be sentenced to 230 months, or a little more than 19 years, in prison. It’s worth noting that the judge who sentences Collier does not have to follow this recommendation.

To explain how that range was calculated, you must first calculate his offender score. According to court documents and McEachran, Collier’s prior felony convictions (and what they count toward his offender score) are as follows:

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Derek Cameron Collier, charged in the death of David Datskiy in Bellingham in May, is planning to argue that he was acting in self-defense in his upcoming trial, which is scheduled to start Feb. 9, according to documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.

Collier is charged with second-degree murder. He’s accused of stabbing Datskiy while the two were talking outside their cars on the 1500 block of James Street on May 11.

A man whose mother died in a Nov. 2007 crash in Lynden is requesting a default judgment in his favor in a wrongful death lawsuit he filed against the woman who he alleges was responsible for the crash.

Michael DiCrosta sued Kamaljit Kaur in Whatcom County Superior Court for damages in October 2008, and his attorney, Bill Coats, filed the motion for a default judgment in favor of his client after Kaur failed to respond to a summons within 20 days.

The accident happened on East Badger Road near Benson Road in Lynden on Nov. 24, 2007. The lawsuit alleges that DiCrosta was driving east on Badger Road with his mother, Elna, in the front passenger seat when Kaur drove through a stop sign on Benson Road and struck their car.

Elna DiCrosta died at the scene; Michael DiCrosta and Kaur were injured in the crash. Alcohol or drugs were not factors in the crash, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The motion had a hearing in Superior Court on Jan. 9. An attorney for Kaur, Bret Simmons, filed a notice of appearance in Superior Court in October 2008 but did not respond to the summons or complaint, court records show.

Nathan R. Goninan, currently an inmate in the Whatcom County Jail while he awaits trial on a manslaughter charge in the death of 17-year-old Jessica Franklin, allegedly threatened to kill a corrections deputy, according to a felony harrassment report filed in the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office.

While this is a common occurrence in the jail, Sheriff Bill Elfo said his office takes the threats seriously and forwards all reported threats to the Whatcom County Prosecutor’s Office, which reviews the incident to determine if charges need to be filed.

The man accused of slashing at the throat of Samantha Shields with a box cutter while she was withdrawing money from an ATM in Ferndale in July has delayed a hearing to enter a guilty plea in Whatcom County Superior Court.

Joseph Ryan Smith is set to plead guilty to first-degree assault with a deadly weapons enhancement, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Christopher Quinn said. Smith was scheduled to plead on Thursday, Jan. 8, but has moved that date to Jan. 12.

He has no felony convictions but is facing about 10 to 12 years in prison, Quinn said.

The Royal Inn in downtown Bellingham ranked 17th on the state Liquor Control Board’s annual list of establishments that served people who had too much to drink but drove anyway.

The Tulalip Casino north of Marysville topped the list with 58 allegedly drunk drivers who told police they drank there in 2008.

The Royal had 22 allegedly drunk drivers tell police they drank there before getting behind the wheel.

The Seattle P-I’s Brad Wong has more, which you can read here.

As Wong notes, the list is based on information contained in a Washington State Patrol database and from people who volunteered to tell police where they had been drinking. It’s in an Excel file and is linked to Wong’s story.

Consider this a preview of a story that I’m working on for next week. I’ll know more once I get an investigation report back from the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office at some point next week.

For now, however, it looks like a faulty switch caused a Sanitary Service Company garbage truck to roll down a hill near Toad Lake and destroy the home of Lynne and Doug Henderson on Oct 8.

Read more! »

Western Washington University students living in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus are a frequent target for burglars, and this winter break was no different, according to the Bellingham Police Department.

Fall quarter ended Dec. 12 and many students took the time off from school to vacation or go home to their parents’ houses. Many came back to find that their houses had been broken in to and their possessions stolen, Lt. Steve Felmley said.

From Dec. 15 through Jan. 2, Felmley said there have been 19 burglaries reported in the Sehome, Happy Valley and York neighborhoods, which are neighborhoods that have traditionally been heavily populated with WWU students.

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