Baraby to serve 40 months in prison

Thomas William Baraby glanced toward the back of the courtroom Wednesday morning, a smile on his face, and watched as his young son toddled back and forth between the seats.

On one side of the room in Douglas County Circuit Court, Baraby’s family members sat anxiously awaiting his sentence for assaulting Tia Kimberling, his girlfriend and the mother of his children, last September.

On the other side, behind Baraby’s prosecutors, sat Kimberling. She, too, wondered what penalty Judge George Ambrosini would hand down to the 25-year-old man convicted last month of felony fourth-degree assault, felon in possession of a firearm and several misdemeanor offenses.

Forty months in prison, just over three years, wasn’t quite as long as she was expecting.

“He’ll be out soon,” Kimberling, 24, said, following the hearing, a continuation of the man’s initial March 3 sentencing hearing scheduled after his trial concluded in late February.

Ambrosini sentenced Baraby to 18 months in prison for the assault charge and 22 months for the firearm possession charge.

He decided to run the sentences consecutively. The two crimes, he explained, had occurred at separate times during the domestic dispute that lasted throughout the last weekend of September at the family’s trailer in Green and culminated with Baraby firing a gun in Kimberling’s direction.

Prosecutors had alleged Baraby fired it at her head with the intent to kill or seriously injure her, and charged him with attempted murder and attempted first-degree assault. Baraby’s defense attorney argued the man had fired the gun near Kimberling with the intent to scare her.

Ambrosini sided with the defense on those two charges, but found him guilty of a third charge of second-degree child neglect, a misdemeanor.

For that misdemeanor, along with endangering the welfare of a minor, providing false information to police and resisting arrest — charges he pleaded guilty to prior to the start of his trial Feb. 12 — Ambrosini sentenced the man to one year for each conviction.

As requested by Baraby’s defense attorney, Jim Arneson, at the initial hearing, the judge made those sentences concurrent to each other and the prison term. Baraby will serve two years of post-prison supervision.

He will not be eligible for prison programs that could allow him to get an early release, the judge also ruled, something Deputy District Attorney Dave Hopkins had sought.

In explaining that decision, the judge noted that the crimes occurred while Baraby was under supervision and while there was a warrant out for his arrest. The couple’s two young children had also been put at risk during the incident.

And, “This was an exacerbated incident of domestic violence,” Ambrosini said.

The judge also considered the many letters that Baraby had written to Kimberling from jail. The letters, in which Baraby discussed the crimes and demanded that Kimberling stop cooperating with prosecutors, were presented during the trial.

Ambrosini listened to recorded phone calls the man had made from jail, more than 13 hours’ worth, in which Baraby made menacing comments, for example, about Kimberling’s request for him to attend anger management classes.

“I’m going to show her my anger management when I get out of prison,” Baraby is reported to have said to a friend.

Outside the courtroom, Kimberling, who reluctantly testified against Baraby at the trial, said she had hoped Baraby would get more time. Although she seems torn, she does worry about what he’ll do when he’s released.

She said she wants him to seek treatment, for his anger and drug problems, when he does get out. At that point, she might consider a reconciliation.

“I love him,” she said, “And he is the father of my kids.”



• You can reach reporter Chelsea Duncan at 957-4246 or by e-mail at cduncan@newsreview.info.