Court Cases | Man awaits sentence for cutting forehead

LOS ANGELES

A federal district court judge in Prescott ordered a June 28 sentencing date for Melvin Paul Nelson after he pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon in the December 2020 stabbing of another man.

The resident of the Arizona portion of the Navajo Reservation was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping and abusive sexual contact on June 11, 2021, in connection with accusations he cut the victim in the forehead with a knife.

The maximum sentence he faces is 10 years in prison but because he agreed to accept responsibility for his actions and showed remorse, federal prosecutors have agreed to recommend that the sentence not exceed eight years.

The court has ordered a pre-sentence evaluation, which includes a polygraph, before formal sentencing.

A character letter has been submitted to the court by Gary Brimhall, owner of Brimhall Sand and Gravel in Indian Wells. He was Nelson’s former employer.

“I have known him for 28 years,” said Brimhall. “I don’t know all he has done in his life but I do know he has helped a lot of people around Indian Wells.”

In his letter, he asked the judge to allow Nelson to get out of prison in March to help with the company’s yearly training program. He said it was hard for many companies to find people who were willing to work.

“I cannot find enough people willing to work,” he said.

The people he has hired for the upcoming construction season cannot go to work until they are trained.

“He is an important part of our company,” Brimhall said, adding he always showed up on time and got along well with the other employees.

He promised that if Nelson was let out and ordered to stay at home, he would have someone bring him the needed supplies so he could work from home.

“I know Melvin has a good heart. I am sure he has made some mistakes. There is nothing like work to make a man become responsible,” he wrote.

There is no indication in Nelson’s court records that the judge considered this request.

Death in ditch results in jury finding man guilty of manslaughter

The case of a 2016 murder of a man in a ditch northeast of Gallup last week ended with the conviction of Brian Tony, 50, by a federal jury in Albuquerque. Tony was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

The case began shortly before 1 a.m. on May 9, 2016, with a 911 call from a man who said he was in a ditch near Superman Canyon in the Church Rock Chapter.

During a nine-minute call from his cell phone, the man, identified in court records as John Doe, told the dispatcher he had been hit in the head with a hammer by Tony.

He also told the dispatcher that Brian Tony and Buck Tony were nearby hurting one of his friends who was not identified in court records. He also said the Bucks had driven him to his current location and he thought they had a gun.

The dispatcher told him not to hang up. Help was on the way.

He repeatedly asked for help and said he was bleeding from the head.

There was no record of who that friend was.

At one point, he said he had to talk softly because the people who hurt him were not very far away. The phone call ended with Doe saying, “Hurry. Here he comes again.
Hurry!”

A short time later, law enforcement arrived on the scene. They found Doe dead. They also found a lot of blood nearby in the dirt. His body was found in a ravine about 72 feet from the roadway.

A preliminary autopsy found that Doe had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck and had two blunt force trauma wounds to the head. The cause of death was not determined but medical examiners said the most likely cause of death was due to loss of blood.

The FBI interviewed Brian Tony’s ex-wife who told them that Doe had once lived with Brian Tony and others in a house in Gallup but had moved out.

With the help of probation officials, the FBI was able to locate Brian Tony at his address on Mariyana Street in Gallup.

The FBI interviewed Brian Tony on May 14. He said he had picked up Doe at his Gallup home the evening that he died. Two others were also in the car. They drove to a location on the Navajo Reservation where he and Doe began arguing. He said he eventually punched Doe in the head.

The two continued to fight and Doe ran away and went down a ravine and called 911. Brian Tony said when Doe got to the bottom of the ravine he threatened to kill him.

Tony said he eventually went down in the ravine the two began fighting again. During the fight, Tony said Doe stabbed him in the arm with a knife. Tony said he removed the knife from his arm and stabbed Doe in the head and neck area.

Brian Tony said he then went back to the car and he and the two other occupants drove back to Gallup. On June 3, 2016, he was arrested by the FBI and charged with first-degree murder and other charges.

This is not the first time Tony had been found guilty of this crime. On Sept. 30, 2017, a federal jury in Albuquerque found him guilty of witness tampering and first-degree murder. He received a life sentence.

The witness tampering charge came from an investigation of the phone calls before his trial when he was incarcerated in the Santa Fe County Detention Center.

While in custody he made multiple phone calls to friends and relatives imploring them to convince a witness to leave the area so he would not be available to testify in his trial.

Other calls he made that were recorded by jail officials were made to his girlfriend asking her not to cooperate with prosecutors.

Tony appealed the decision and, in May 2020, the appeal ended with a judgement calling for a new trial.

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