EVERETT — A career criminal accused of clobbering a sleeping man with a lamp during a dispute over a pornographic movie could be facing another long stretch behind bars.
Curtis Anthony Sherman has racked up 14 felony convictions since the 1980s. When he was arrested in late March for investigation of assault, he allegedly told police he belonged in jail, saying he had earned his “third strike.”
The math is a bit more complicated.
Sherman, 46, is accused of breaking a man’s nose with a heavy table lamp. He was charged earlier this week with second-degree assault. He pleaded not guilty to the charge on Thursday. His trial is scheduled for May.
The assault happened inside an Everett apartment on March 24.
Everett officers found a 64-year-old man covered in blood and holding a towel to his battered nose. He had cuts and scrapes on his arms. There was blood on a metal lamp and blood spatter on a wall behind a sofa.
Witnesses told police that Sherman was visiting but became violent when he was told he couldn’t watch a porno on the television in the living room. The victim was asleep on the couch in the room, witnesses said.
The victim’s roommate told Sherman to pipe down. Sherman reportedly threatened to kill the man and cussed at the man’s girlfriend. The man said Sherman shoved him into a wall and stomped into the living room.
He then grabbed a lamp with an articulating arm and struck the sleeping man on the head, witnesses told police. The force of the blow shattered the light bulb.
The victim “was initially completely defenseless to this assault,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Mara Rozzano wrote.
Sherman reportedly continued to clobber the man with the lamp. He also allegedly pummelled him with his fists and a backpack.
The attack didn’t stop until Sherman was told police were on their way to the apartment, court papers said. He was gone when the cops arrived.
The witnesses told police they don’t know why Sherman lashed out at the victim, who was “sound asleep.”
Sherman was arrested when he came back to the apartment later that night.
The Everett man was last in prison in 2011. He’d been serving time for two separate bank robberies.
Sherman had only been out of prison for a couple of days in 2002 when he held up two banks.
In the first heist, he handed the teller a note, demanding cash. The teller saw the name and telephone number of Sherman’s girlfriend on the back of the note, court papers said.
Before police could catch up with him, he held up a bank inside a Lynnwood grocery store the next day.
In that robbery, he borrowed a sheet of paper and pen from a cab driver, who was helping him look for a bank open on Saturdays.
Sherman used the paper to write a holdup note. On the way to the bank, he had the driver stop at a convenience store. He bought a bandage to cover the scar on his face and a pair of sunglasses.
Once outside the bank, he asked the driver to wait. He never returned and she called police, complaining that he’d skipped out on the fare. Her call came in about the same time the alarm went off for the robbery.
Police had plenty of evidence to lead them to Sherman, but he made it even easier.
The day after the second bank heist, Sherman returned to the scene of the crime. He was stopped for shoplifting inside the store. The police officer who came to investigate happened to have put together the photo lineup for the previous day’s bank robbery.
Sherman was convicted of first-degree robbery at a jury trial. He also pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery. Robbery is considered a “most serious offense” and a strike under the state’s persistent offender law.
His robbery convictions, however, only count as one strike because Sherman wasn’t convicted of the first before he committed the second, prosecutors said. His other felony convictions, mostly property crimes, aren’t classified as strikes.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
