KINGMAN – Blinding one of the eyes of a local teenager results in an 8.75-year prison term for a Kingman man. The sentence that Mohave County Superior Court judge Derek Carlisle ordered Thursday, Sept. 21 for Richard Pounds was the maximum punishment possible under terms of a plea agreement convicting him of aggravated assault.
The 34-year-old defendant admits the 14-year-old girl was wounded by a ricochet projectile while he played “BB gun wars” inside a Packer Ave. home. Defense attorney Ron Gilleo called the conduct reckless but unintentional.
Child abuse charges associated with the girl and her dead brother are dismissed in the plea deal.
The girl was removed from the residence and placed in state care early this year when authorities investigated the death of her brother Kenneth Jones, 16. Prosecutor Amanda Claerhout said the medical examiner labeled Jones’ death a homicide, and that significant malnutrition may also have been a factor.
Claerhout said extensive investigation failed to produce sufficient evidence to charge anyone with the boy’s murder. His father Jon Imes and mother Amber-Leah Valentine, both 41, were both charged for abandoning their son’s body.
The Valentine case is pending while Imes recently pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing to prison.
