San Diego
Michael Maas was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison for a machete attack on a black man at a Normal Heights convenience store.
Maas’ attorney, Michael Butler, told San Diego Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman that Maas, 28, only meant to scare the victim, not kill him.
Butler said that, if Maas really had wanted to kill the victim, Gary Ruff, he would have used the gun he was armed with at the time.
Huffman ordered the eight-year term to run consecutively with a three-year sentence he is serving for breaking his girlfriend’s arms with a spiked baseball bat. But Huffman ruled that Maas can serve the sentence concurrently with any federal prison term he might receive in a separate case.
Maas pleaded guilty Oct. 15 during a federal trial to violating the civil rights of a black family driven from their Normal Heights neighborhood. He could receive an 18-year sentence when U.S. District Judge Earl Gilliam sentences him Dec. 15.
“He has a history of racial violence and of violence with his girlfriend,” argued Deputy Dist. Atty. Lori Koster.
Huffman also imposed a $500 fine.
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