Featured Image Credit: Clark County District Court
Topics: Crime, Health, Mental Health, True crime, US News, Las Vegas
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Crime, Health, Mental Health, True crime, US News, Las Vegas
Warning: This article contains graphic images and video which some readers may find distressing.
A judge has spoken out after being attacked by a defendant while in the courtroom.
Footage recorded in a courtroom at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas last month went viral after a defendant charged towards the bench and threw himself over it towards the judge.
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On 3 January, Deobra Delone Redden faced District Judge Mary Kay Holthus to receive his sentence after pleading guilty in November to a reduced charge of attempted battery causing substantial bodily harm.
In court, Redden asked the 62-year-old judge for leniency, saying he isn't 'a rebellious person' but a 'person who never stops trying to do the right thing no matter how hard it is' and so didn't believe he should be sent to prison, his attorney asking for a period of probation instead.
However, taking into consideration Redden's previous offences, Judge Holthus declined the request and as she made clear her intentions to put him behind bars, a video recording of the conference captured Redden charging towards the bench, flinging himself over it and towards the judge.
Judge Holthus has since spoken out about the incident with her version of events.
Redden was dragged off the judge by court officials and officers - who were reported as being injured in the altercation - and Judge Holthus is said to have sustained some injuries but did not need hospitalization.
A testimony transcript dated 7 February obtained by Fox5 Las Vegas details the judge's recollection of events, Holthus recalling Redden 'literally jump[ing] that defence table' and 'slam[ming] [her] into the wall'.
The judge reflects it all happened 'incredibly fast' but she remembers the defendant 'threw her down backward' while grabbing her hair, prompting her to curl up into a fetal position, feeling 'absolutely terrified'.
In the transcript, Judge Holthus thanked the court officials for intervening and restraining Redden, noting that, without them, she was 'no match' for the defendant.
She resolved: "If it was just me, I wouldn’t have survived multiple blows to the head which is clearly where we were going with it. So I’m very thankful."
The judge says she has been left with injuries she still has to deal with to this day.
Redden has since been sentenced for the 2023 attempted battery charge and handed a sentence of four years in prison.
However, he also now faces an additional series of charges in relation to the courtroom incident, set to go to court on 29 February in front of a grand jury, in relation to the charges of disregarding the safety of a person resulting in substantial bodily harm, extortion, intimidating a public officer with threat of force, battery and attempted murder of an older person.
UNILAD has contacted Redden's representative, Caesar Almase, for comment.