Clovis man sentenced to 16 years for assault

CLOVIS — A Clovis man was sentenced Monday to 16 years in prison through a plea agreement involving three cases originating almost exactly a year earlier.

Brandon Wagner, 33, pleaded no contest to two counts of aggravated assault on a healthcare worker, a third-degree felony.

According to court records, Wagner returned days late from a court-approved furlough in late March of 2018 and during intake was seen swallowing an item of contraband that he’d concealed in his person. He was taken to a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit “for monitoring and treatment,” and there “began to become disruptive and violent.”

According to prosecutor Arwen Gaddis, Wagner then “began chewing through cables and tubes ... one of which was an IV filled with blood.” The tube sprayed in the vicinity of two attending nurses and left “blood on the blinds and ceiling tiles,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Defense attorney Brett Carter said Wagner was “probably feeling the influence of some of the items he possibly could have ingested” at the time of that incident.

In addition to the assault counts, Wagner was also charged with attempted jail escape, smuggling contraband into the facility and shoplifting approximately $5,000 from a Clovis jewelry store during his long furlough. Those felony charges were all dropped per the agreement, with attorneys noting Monday that Wagner could have faced a lifelong prison term if the cases went to trial. Carter and Gaddis agreed, though, that not all of those charges might have made it to trial, and Gaddis spoke to the “judicial economy” of the agreement.

Wagner will also be required to pay restitution amounting to over $5,000 for the stolen and damaged property.

All told, “it is a long sentence,” Judge Fred Van Soelen told Wagner, who will be eligible for release after serving as little as half of the 16-year sentence in addition to some remaining years on a previous conviction.

“You’re going to come out 10 years or more older than you are now,” he said. “I hope by then you realize ... this is not the way you want to live your life.”