A former New Windsor Town Councilman was sentenced to serve 90 days of a three-year sentence Wednesday in Carroll County Circuit Court on a second-degree assault charge.
Terry M. Green Jr., 40, pleaded not guilty under an agreed statement of facts, functionally a guilty plea, according to online court records.
Carroll County Judge Richard Titus handed down a three-year sentence and suspended all but 90 days. Green will have to serve three years of supervised probation following his release from jail, online records show.
Allan Culver, Carroll County deputy state’s attorney, said the not guilty plea under an agreed statement of facts is when the defendant does not dispute the facts that were read into evidence.
Culver said second-degree assault is a misdemeanor, and the result of his sentence was a calculation determined by Maryland sentencing guidelines. Culver said the sentencing range for Green’s charge is between three months and two years.
[ New Windsor council member once convicted of murder being held on assault charge ]
According to charging documents, a deputy with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call at 11:38 p.m. on Jan. 3 for a reported incident at a New Windsor residence. He spoke with a woman at the scene, who said she and Green had gotten into a verbal argument that turned physical.
The woman said she and Green began to argue, charging documents state, and that he yelled insults at her, but that she did not remember details about how the physical altercation began. The woman told police she attempted to crawl upstairs after being on the floor, with Green on her back.
According to charging documents, she said Green placed her in a headlock when she got to the top of the stairs and she had difficulty breathing for about a minute, according to charging documents. She said she bit him on the right biceps to get him off of her, but believed he released his grip under his own power.
The deputy observed redness around the woman’s neck and upper chest area, redness around her lower right cheek area, and slight bruising on her left cheek, according to charging documents. The deputy also observed dried blood on the woman’s left nostril.
Green told the deputy the woman became angry with him for what he described as no reason and said he began to film the woman on his cellphone and that she lunged out and bit him on the right biceps, according to charging documents. Green advised that he pushed the woman off of him and to the ground, holding her in a leg lock to keep her from advancing. She then went upstairs and Green followed, and he said the woman punched him in the face.
The determination was made by law enforcement that Green was “the aggressor” and was placed under arrest, charging documents state.
Del. Haven Shoemaker, who represents Carroll County’s District 5, also represented Green in this case. He said he would obviously prefer his client receive no amount of incarceration at all. However, “it was a fair result from Judge Titus,” he added. “One that stems from plea negotiations.”
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Shoemaker said Titus was “kind enough” to allow them to have two pretrial conferences where they worked out an agreement that was added to the record on Wednesday.
At the time of the January incident, Green was a member of the New Windsor Town Council, but he resigned on Feb. 3. He was elected to the New Windsor Town Council in 2019.
This incident was not Green’s first criminal case.
In 2001, Green was convicted of second-degree murder in the Sept. 25, 1999 death of John Straley. He testified under oath that he was lured into a conspiracy to kill John Straley by Samantha Straley, whom he had been dating for about three months, according to a 2001 article by The Daily Times in Salisbury.
This conspiracy, he said, was hatched in a matter of brief conversations the week before the 1999 incident with his girlfriend’s mother, Madeline, and family friend James E. Jarrett Jr.
Green testified that he entered Straley’s home with Jarrett, grabbed Straley while he was sitting on a bed watching television, and choked him until he was unconscious, according to the newspaper’s account, and that the two men carried his body upstairs and Green lit a cigarette, flicked it into the room with Straley’s body in it, and Jarrett sprinkled gasoline in the room.
Green served 14 years of a 20-year prison sentence for Straley’s death.