Springfield man gets jail for shooting

A Springfield man was sentenced to serve four to 15 years in jail Friday for a shooting last year that injured a woman.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20111029/NEWS02/710299937

Published October 29, 2011 in the Rutland Herald

Springfield man gets jail for shooting

By Brent Curtis
STAFF WRITER

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A Springfield man was sentenced to serve four to 15 years in jail Friday for a shooting last year that injured a woman.

Timothy P. Decelle, 30, was sentenced in White River Junction criminal court months after he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aggravated assault with a weapon and four misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.

As part of a plea deal Decelle accepted, his maximum sentence couldn’t exceed four years to 15 years in jail.

During arguments in court on Friday, Windsor County State’s Attorney Robert Sand said Decelle’s attorney, Sandra Nelson, asked that her client receive a lesser sentence on the grounds that he was remorseful for firing a rifle into a vehicle occupied by five people.

She also said Decelle had medical issues that would make a long stay in jail difficult and she said the 30-year-old would be unable to care for his family in jail.

But Judge Patricia Zimmerman agreed with Sand’s assertion that Decelle should serve the maximum amount of time for a crime he described as “extremely dangerous” and “incredibly reckless.”

“He simply fired a gun in the middle of a residential area,” Sand said.

The incident took place during a confrontation on May 2, 2010, between Decelle and several occupants of a car that had stopped outside his home on Valley Street.

Police said that in the midst of an argument with the people in the car, Decelle went into his house and grabbed a .22-caliber rifle, which he fired twice at the car.

One of the rounds penetrated the vehicle and struck Springfield resident Jenna LaVoie in the leg.

Sand said the 27-year-old LaVoie, who knew Decelle but wasn’t part of the dispute, told the judge on Friday that she was injured and continues to carry the bullet lodged in her leg over a grudge she had nothing to do with.

The argument primarily concerned Decelle and LaVoie’s husband, Keith LaVoie, whose grudge with Decelle dated back to 2006 when Decelle reportedly damaged some of LaVoie’s compact discs.

Several people in the car told police they had driven to Decelle’s house only to talk. But Decelle, who reportedly spit on LaVoie’s car earlier that day, told police that the people in the car threatened him, his wife and his two small children with violence.

Decelle, who has been free on $10,000 bail since his arrest, began serving his jail sentence Friday.

Sand said after the hearing that he hopes the sentence will send a message not only to anyone thinking of settling arguments with firearms but also to anyone thinking about bringing a group of people to settle a grudge.

“I tried to impress the idea that a group of people in a heated moment going to try to talk out an issue is just a bad idea,” he said.