After pleading guilty this April to criminally negligent homicide, Juneau resident David Valentine Evenson will serve a sentence of three years in prison.
Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg accepted the plea deal at a hearing Friday morning, Assistant District Attorney Amy Paige said via email Friday, which stipulated that Evenson, 52, gets a sentence of six years total with three years suspended.
The charge stems from a June 30, 2017 assault at the Downtown Transit Center that resulted in the death of 56-year-old Aaron G. Monette. Very little has been revealed about Monette in court over the past year.
Surveillance footage from the time reportedly showed Evenson punching Monette in the side of the head. An autopsy on Monette made a preliminary finding that a pre-existing aneurysm ruptured in the assault and was a contributing factor to Monette’s death, according to reports at the time.
Evenson was arrested on charges of second-degree murder, criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter when he turned himself into police July 7, 2017. A Juneau grand jury did not indict Evenson for murder but did indict him on the other two charges. The plea deal dismisses the manslaughter charge, Assistant Public Defender Eric Hedland said in court in April, and it also dismisses an unrelated misdemeanor assault charge from Jan. 14, 2017.
Criminally negligent homicide is a class B felony, Pallenberg said in court in April, with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Manslaughter, Pallenberg said in April, is a more serious charge.
