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Wayne County Circuit Judge Shannon Walker isn't talking or explaining why she sentenced a habitual offender to probation for what clearly was a carjacking involving an 85-year-old victim at a Detroit gas station last Sept. 2.
Dontonio Jones, 21, was initially charged with carjacking after he and an accomplice forced Mable Coats, 85, of a Chevy Tahoe truck she was sitting in at a Citgo gas station on Detroit's northwest side, George Hunter of The Detroit News. Her granddaughter, Sonia White-Traylor, who owns the vehicle, was in the station store when the two men stole the car. No weapon was reported to have been used.
Dontonio and his accomplice were originally charged with carjacking, but In November, Judge Walker dropped the carjacking charge against Jones and he pleaded guilty to unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, Hunter wrties.
On Tuesday, Judge Walker sentenced Dontonio to three years' probation.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Coats says. “They aren’t saying they arrested the wrong people. So if they know who did it, how are they not going to jail?”
It's not as if Jones' previous convictions were minor ones. He had been convicted of home invasion, carrying a concealed weapon, receiving stolen property and fleeing a police officer, the News reports. His accomplice, Deonte Russell, was sentenced under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, so the judge’s ruling is not public record.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the granddaughter told the New, when she said was told of the sentence. “He puts my grandmother through all that ... I got my truck stolen, lost my purse, glasses, $400 in cash, a $500 deductible — and all he gets is three years’ probation?
