Man sentenced to 13 years for stealing car, assaulting deputies and hitting K-9

Palm Coast Observer
News

Matthew Nesbitt, 45, has been sentenced to 13 years in state prison for a Nov. 6 incident in which he stole his mother's SUV, led deputies on a chase, threatened them with a knife and punched a police dog that caught him.

Nesbitt had been convicted in July of three counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, grand theft of a motor vehicle, battery on a police dog, resisting an officer with violence and fleeing and eluding.

The prosecution had sought a 20-year sentence.

At a sentencing hearing the afternoon of Sept. 14, multiple witnesses attested to Nesbitt's history of drug problems and said that his behavior when he was under the influence of drugs didn't speak to his character when he was sober. They pointed out that he had not previously been arrested for violent offenses.

But judges aren't permitted to consider drug use as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Nesbitt's mother told the judge that she believed Nesbitt had been trying to commit suicide by cop that day when he threatened deputies with a knife. She said the family had sought residential drug treatment for him in the past but had been stymied by lack of availability.

Nesbitt told the court that in his past — he'd been incarcerated before — he had't really cared about anyone but himself, while now, with a young son, he thinks about how his actions affect others. He also denied having verbally threatened deputies.

Judge Terence Perkins called the case "troubling ... on a number of levels."

"Unfortunately for me, as the attorneys well know, I don’t get to sentence Mr. Nesbitt either as a good person or as a bad person or as an addict or anything like that," Perkins said. "I get to sentence him based solely on the actions that were judged by the jury and charged into this case."

The judge sentenced Nesbitt to a combined 13 years for the counts of aggravated assault on law enforcement officers and fleeing and eluding, and to time served — he'd been jailed for 313 days — on the charges of auto theft and striking a police dog.