Man sentenced to prison for brutal beating
A Kila man who viciously beat his wife's lover after finding them together has been sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by 10 years on probation.
"This goes way beyond overreaction, in my view," Flathead County District Court Judge Katherine R. Curtis said before sentencing 35-year-old Robert Reynolds Derby III to substantial prison time Thursday. "It's about as aggravated a case of aggravated assault as I care to contemplate."
Curtis also ordered Derby - who won't be eligible for parole until completing all the anger management programs available at Montana State Prison - to pay more than $70,000 in restitution to cover medical expenses, lost income, and future care and replacement costs for his victim's prosthetic eye.
The March 2008 beating caused the then-29-year-old man to lose his left eye.
"I believe in justice and I know that it has been fulfilled in a court of law today," the victim testified Thursday.
He told the court injuries suffered in the beating caused him to lose his job as a driver for UPS and that he lived in fear of Derby. The incident scarred him for life and impacted his whole family, he said.
"Put my mom through a lot of stress. My father can't deal with it. My father can't talk about it. My father couldn't be here," he said.
Derby, who also took the stand Thursday, told the court he wasn't an evil or violent man.
"I feel terrible," said Derby, who broke down early in his testimony. "And I wish there was a way I could change it."
Derby, who has been denied contact with his three daughters, told Curtis the loss of his children is the worst thing that could have happened to him. The girls were in the home when the attack occurred.
"I'm truly, from the bottom of my heart, sorry," Derby told the victim. "I wish you had never met my wife."
Attorney Thane Johnson, of the Kalispell firm Johnson, Berg, McEvoy and Bostock, asked Curtis to give Derby a two-year prison sentence followed by 18 years of probation.
"He is a man who cares about his children and the sanctity of marriage, or we would not be here," Johnson said.
Johnson argued throughout Derby's February trial that the attack was an "involuntary act" committed after his client 'snapped."
"There was an emotional roller coaster that happened right then and there - substantial mitigating circumstances," Johnson said Thursday while describing Derby's state of mind upon walking in on his wife and the victim.
Prosecutors, however, argued that Derby committed the crime knowingly and purposely.
A jury of six men and six women deliberated for about four hours before returning guilty verdicts on three of the four charges filed against him.
Jurors convicted Derby of felony aggravated assault, felony criminal endangerment, and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of children. He was acquitted of misdemeanor partner assault.
On Thursday, Curtis sentenced Derby to 20 years in prison with 10 suspended for the aggravated assault, a sentence that will run concurrently with a 10-year prison term for the criminal endangerment and six months in jail for endangering the welfare of his children.
According to testimony during the trial, Flathead County Sheriff's deputies responding to a home on Spring Hill Drive in Kila just before 11:30 p.m. on March 3, 2008, found the victim with bruised ribs, a broken jaw and a severely injured eye.
Derby had dialed 911 to report he had just caught his wife in bed with another man and then "beat the hell out of him," according to a recording of the call played in court.
Both Derby and his victim have said they have no memory of the incident.
After the beating, Derby brought his three daughters into the bedroom to view the aftermath - the basis for the endangering-the-welfare-of-children allegations.
Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com