Dumas receives prison sentence

Monday afternoon in District Court, Darren Dumas was sentenced to a total five to 10 years in the state penitentiary. Dumas was sentenced on three charges, including failure to register as a sex offender, strangulation of a household member and domestic violence-battery.

The strangulation and domestic violence charges state he beat Christy Dumas from Sept. 23-26 and impeded her breathing on Sept. 26. As to the failure to register, Dumas was charged and convicted of the crime in 2015 and given five years supervised probation, though he later admitted to violating the probation on Feb. 16, 2017.

Dumas had his probation revoked and was sentenced to 3-5 years in the penitentiary on the failure to register charge, and 2-5 years on the strangulation charge. Those sentences were ordered served consecutively. He received 180 days on the domestic violence charge, ordered served concurrently. He was also fined $2,500 for the domestic violence.

Following trial, on April 19, 2017, Dumas was found guilty of the strangulation and violence charges. During the trial, testimony was heard regarding the couple’s relationship and the injuries Christy received, though different scenarios were presented as to how things got to the point of physical injury.

The prosecution stated it was a case of Darren not approving of some of Christy’s lifestyle choices and friends, and his assault on her was an effort to end the relationship. The defense argued Christy did not want the relationship to end, and she sustained some of her injuries when crawling through a dog door after Darren had locked her out of their home. A point was also raised about inconsistencies in Christy’s accounts of the events.

At sentencing, prosecuting attorney Marcia Bean said letters had been sent to Darren from Christy which were sad and somewhat pathetic, as she still wants their marriage to work. Bean pointed out Darren’s criminal history is significant and disturbing, including sexual assault, assault and battery, domestic violence, possession of a controlled substance and check fraud, and the commonality among it all is he doesn’t take responsibility for his actions.

Bean said Christy wanted and still wants the marriage to work. That doesn’t mean the violence didn’t happen, she said. It means Darren chose his victim well. She further added Darren’s history shows he has a vicious aspect to his personality.

Defense attorney Hope Mead presented letters written to Darren by Christy, which show she is not a scarred and battered woman. Mead pointed out Christy also believes Darren should not go to prison, and asked the court to respect that request.

Mead also pointed out Christy has not filed for divorce and admitted she did things just to hurt Darren. As for not taking responsibility, Mead said Darren is as he had a job waiting for him and he has a good work ethic. She noted he’s made trustee in the jail, and in that position he has done cooking, cleaning and repair work.

Darren said he is not the evil person everyone is making him out to be.