A man with half a head has been jailed for 10 years for a violent attack that left a supermarket employee covered in blood.
Authorities in Montana said the man from Butte attacked an employee at a Town Pump convenience store and a court was told he had left the worker floored and covered in blood.
The defendant urged a judge on Wednesday to spare him from prison, ironically saying it was “full of violence and hostility”.
The judge ignored the appeal and sentenced Robert Matthew Berkopec to 10 years in Montana State Prison, saying it was his own violence that put him there.
District Judge Robert Whelan told him: “It is an anger-management issue that clearly is a danger to society.”
Prosecutors were thinking of asking for a lighter sentence but then Berkopec was arrested a second time for physically assaulting a woman.
Prosecutor Ann Shea said Berkopec deserved prison time this time. She told the court: “We believe the defendant, given his criminal history, has a propensity toward violence. People get injured. He creates victims.
The court was told it started over the price of a cup of coffee at the store.
Berkopec ran toward the worker saying he made his girlfriend cry and “rushed him and slammed him into the manager's office door.”
The paper says Berkopec struck him several times in the face and head with his fists before taking off, according to charging documents. A business manager was inside an office in the store at the time.
When she came out, she saw the clerk “laying on the ground covered in blood and an unknown male was running out of the business,” charging documents state.
Thanks to a particularly unusual description, police were able to quickly track down the violent monster and then he immediately admitted it all.
“Berkopec stated he knew he was wrong but said that his girlfriend had come out of the store crying and his maternal instincts got the best of him,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors initially charged Berkopec with aggravated burglary, which carries a 40-year maximum prison sentence, but in a plea deal reduced it to criminal endangerment with a 10-year maximum.
Prosecutors changed their recommendation after they charged Berkopec with assaulting a woman during a domestic dispute on June 5, which he admitted and pleaded guilty to on Wednesday.
Berkopec asked for rehabilitation instead of a prison sentence.
“I need help with my anger,” he said, adding that he had a year-year-old son who needed a dad, the paper reports.
