A Coahoma County man, recently convicted in Tallahatchie County Circuit Court in a 2015 Tutwiler case involving a shooting and kidnapping, has been sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Circuit Judge Smith Murphey handed down the sentence against Deunta Dward Gardner, 28, of 660 East St., Coahoma, during a Jan. 8 circuit court hearing in the Second Judicial District at Sumner.
Found guilty of four felony charges, Murphey decreed that Deunta Gardner’s sentences be served in the following order: 30 years for kidnapping, 20 years for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, 10 years for felon in possession of a firearm and five years for conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, all to run consecutively, for a total of 65 years to be served in prison.
Noting that the July 28, 2015, incident for which Gardner was just sentenced had occurred while he was free under the terms of a 2011 suspended sentence for armed robbery from Hinds County, Murphey reasoned that his release now would constitute “a special danger to the community” and ordered that Gardner be denied bail.
The judge also ordered that Gardner pay then unspecified court costs.
In connection with the same 2015 incident, Gardner’s younger brother, Darien Dewayne Gardner, 23, of 516 Main St., Coahoma, pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced by Circuit Judge Jimmy McClure during a Jan. 9 hearing in Sumner.
McClure sentenced the junior Gardner to 20 years imprisonment, with the last five years suspended.
After his prison term, Darien Gardner is to serve one year of reporting post-release supervision, McClure ordered.
Darien Gardner also was assessed unspecified costs of court and was ordered to pay a fine of $500 and crime victim compensation of $6,080, all at the rate of $100 per month beginning 60 days after his release from prison.
The 2015 Tutwiler case involved the shooting of one man, and the kidnapping of another, from a residence in the 400 block of West Street.
The shooting victim, whom then Tutwiler Police Chief James Mason identified as a man in his 20s and an acquaintance of Darien Gardner, suffered multiple gunshot wounds from a Ruger P89 handgun and underwent several surgeries at a Memphis hospital.
