A local judge has rejected the plea agreement proposed for one of three men charged in an armed robbery spree of Kingman area businesses. Judge Billy Sipe said last Thursday that the deal was improperly structured for him to impose the 21-28 year punishment it required in the case against Francis Allison, 59.
Judge Sipe also said the agreement was too lenient anyway and that he believes each of the three co-defendants probably deserve a life prison sentence.
Allison originally faced 56 felony charges in ten cases. Seven of them, and 51 charges, were to be dismissed in the proposed plea convicting him of five charges from three cases.
Sipe said that the suspects, in some of the robberies, wore gloves, masks and body armor and were heavily armed and prepared for a shootout during the crime spree.
“The defendants in this case clearly meant business,” Sipe said, before questioning the sentencing restrictions of the plea deal. “I’m just kind of wondering why the county attorney’s office doesn’t mean business.”
Prosecutor Jonathan Robinson said the deal is justified because Allison is convicted in the three most serious cases and because he was very cooperative with investigators.
Defense attorney Randall Craig told the Court that Allison was struggling with the death of his mother, separation from his wife, overwhelming debt and alcoholism at the time of the crime spree.
“He wasn’t in his right mind. He was drinking himself to sleep every day,” Craig said. “He’s been suffering for 30 years from a drunk brain.”
Craig said the plea is also appropriate because Allison was the less culpable than case co-defendants. “In most of these crimes he was, in essence, a lookout.”
Judge Sipe said the calculated crime spree was too detailed and dangerous for him to approve the plea. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a case in Mohave County so sophisticated, involving planning to prepare with body armor,” the Judge said.
Rejection of the plea deal will see Allison’s case assigned to another judge. Cases are still pending against the co-defendants Anthony Axton, 32, and Preston Milks, 25, both of Kingman.
