Nathaniel Williams was shot eight times at a Charleston bar last year. He's spent nearly five months in jail as a result of his actions during the incident, and a prosecutor said Friday that Williams should be released.
But Kanawha Circuit Judge Duke Bloom didn't agree, and sentenced Williams to spend two years in prison.
Williams, 30, was given credit for the 140 days he's already spent in the South Central Regional Jail. He pleaded guilty last month to wanton endangerment for shooting his gun twice outside the Boondocks Bar and Grill, in the 2300 block of Washington Street West, just after 2 a.m. on May 14.
Williams said he fired his gun twice in the air in an attempt to clear traffic so he could make it to the hospital.
"Have you ever heard of a horn?" Bloom asked Williams.
Williams replied that he had made a split-second decision to fire his gun. He apologized for his actions.
"I felt it was either move the crowd or sit back and die in my backseat," Williams said. "I take full responsibility for my actions."
Jamaine Sutton, 32, of Dunbar, was pronounced dead at the bar. He was shot five times. A North Carolina man, Jacques Slade, pleaded guilty last month to voluntary manslaughter in Sutton's death.
Kanawha Assistant Prosecutor Fred Giggenbach on Friday described the incident at the bar as a "Wild West shootout." The prosecutor said Williams fired his shots after others had stopped shooting. He added that undercover police officers at the scene were not wounded.
Williams "might have had a good shot at trial, given that he was shot eight times," Giggenbach said. Instead, Williams took a deal with prosecutors last month and pleaded guilty to the wanton endangerment charge, which marked his first felony conviction. Prosecutors wanted to convict Williams of a felony so he could no longer legally possess a firearm.
As part of the deal Williams made with prosecutors, a second charge of wanton endangerment was dropped. That charge stemmed from an incident in Dunbar last October in which Williams held his gun above his head and fired a warning shot, Giggenbach said.
Williams' lawyer, Shawn Bayliss, told the judge that his client was looking forward to getting his life back. Before he was indicted in the fall, Williams worked for ServPro, a company that performs fire- and water-damage restoration. He even renewed the certificates he's required to have while he was incarcerated, according to Bayliss.
"I'm ready to put this behind me and move forward with my life," Williams said.
Before handing down the sentence Friday, Bloom said he had doubts about the version of events he was given.
"You are not necessarily the victim you present yourself to be," the judge told Williams.
A loud gasp could be heard in the courtroom when the judge handed down the sentence.
Williams and the prosecutor made eye contact while Williams was walked out of the courtroom. After the hearing, Bayliss could be heard telling Williams' family members that he had never before seen Giggenbach recommend that a sentence be reduced to time served.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.