The following is a press release issued by the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office:
Defendant Timmy Kent Cooper, age 61, formerly of Ukiah, was sentenced Friday morning in the Mendocino County Superior Court to 33 years to life in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
As previously reported, a Mendocino County Superior Court jury found Cooper guilty of felony assault with a deadly weapon and personally inflicting great bodily injury by breaking the victim’s arm, said verdicts being returned in February following deliberations that lasted less than a half an hour.
In a bifurcated evidentiary hearing conducted after the jury was excused, the District Attorney proved with certified court documents that Cooper has suffered four prior Strike convictions.
Those prior Strike convictions are for residential burglary, two counts of robbery in Los Angeles County, and a bank robbery using a deadly weapon in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
A Strike conviction is defined by current California law as either a serious prior felony conviction, as listed in Penal Code section 1192.7(c), or a violent prior felony conviction, as listed in Penal Code section 667.5(c).
Of the defendant’s prior Strike convictions noted above, three are characterized by California law as violent and one is characterized as serious. The most recent Mendocino County conviction is also characterized by law as violent.
The law enforcement agencies that gathered the People’s trial evidence and provided trial support were the Ukiah Police Department and the District Attorney’s own Bureau of Investigations.
The prosecutor who represented the People’s interests at today’s sentencing hearing was Assistant District Attorney Dale P. Trigg.
The defendant, his attorney, and ADA Trigg appeared before Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder Friday morning to present arguments regarding applicable law and the appropriate sentence for this defendant, given the instant crime and his background of felonious recidivism.
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