A Rock Springs man on Tuesday pleaded “no contest” to the aggravated assault charge stemming from allegations that he put out his caretaker’s eye with pliers.
Robert Wayne Downum, 58, appeared Tuesday in Sweetwater County District Court alongside public defender Rob Spence, and one table away from Sweetwater County Deputy Attorney Alex Breckenridge.
Downum was set to go to trial Oct. 13 on the lone aggravated assault charge he faces, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
But on Oct. 1, he signed a plea agreement to settle the case.
Under the agreement, the Sweetwater County Attorney’s Office agrees to seek no more than 6-8 years in prison while arguing Downum’s sentence.
Downum can argue for any sentence he’d like, including probation or time at a mental health facility, the agreement says.
Sweetwater County District Court Judge Richard Lavery is not bound by the agreement, the judge noted Tuesday.
Downum may also be ordered to pay $4,900 in restitution, which the Wyoming Division of Victim Services has requested as compensation in this case, as well as standard court costs and fees.
Because he pleaded “no contest” rather than “guilty,” Downum did not have to give a confession Tuesday in court.
The evidentiary affidavit in the case serves as proof that Downum committed aggravated assault, Breckenridge said.
Though he didn’t tease out a confession, Lavery had multiple questions Tuesday for Downum, such as what brought him to Sweetwater County and when, and what family members he had in the area.
Downum came to town in 1991 at the age of 24 after a two-year stint in a California prison for auto theft to help his sister “out here,” he said.
He has a large family in the area, though his mother has died, he added.
A problem with this case so far, indicated Lavery, is that Downum hasn’t given enough information about himself to inform a good sentencing decision.
“But probation and parole (interviewers) said they had some difficulty getting you to sit down and talk,” said the judge.
“Well, I’m kind of traumatized by my past,” said Downum. “I kind of — kind of like locked up my past.”
He later added that it bothers him to talk about his past drug use.
“I just feel guilty about my past,” he said. “It’s just that when I talk about using, I think about my mom. And the way I promised her in heaven that I would not use no more.”
Lavery still urged Downum to let probation and parole staffers interview him so they could complete a pre-sentence investigation report.
Judges in Wyoming use presentence investigation reports to learn about defendants before sentencing them.
“I’ll do it,” said Downum.
Stabbing
Downum was charged last year on claims he stabbed his elderly landlord in the eye with pliers on Jan. 13, 2024.
By Downum’s account in his Aug. 4 self-defense, or “John” hearing, David Brough handled Downum’s social security payments for him. Brough also bought a trailer house for Downum, and Downum agreed to pay him back for that and gain the legal title to the trailer.
Brough helped Downum go to meetings, get his medication, and apply for public benefits, even helping Downum to the point that he “saved his life,” Downum conceded at the hearing.
They had rocky interactions as well, said Downum, alleging that on past instances Brough yelled at Downum, tapped him on the chest and shoved past him – prompting Downum to threaten Brough with a frying pan.
Downum testified that on Jan. 13, 2024, Brough shouldered through the trailer door and attacked Downum, prompting the pliers attack.
Brough gave an altogether different testimony, saying he came to bring Downum’s benefits money and check the pipes for freezing, and Downum grew angry once Brough was already inside the trailer.
“Downum got really mad and walked around a table looking for something to hit him with,” Lavery’s Aug. 8 order recounts from that testimony. “He picked up a pair of pliers.”
Brough testified that he didn’t think Downum was serious about using the pliers and acknowledged that Downum had threatened him with a frying pan in the past.
Brough tried to calm the man down.
“Downum swung the pliers at Mr. Brough full force, hitting him in the side of his nose and stabbing his eye out,” Lavery recounted from the older man’s testimony, which he found more credible than Downum’s account of the incident. “Mr. Brough turned and left. Mr. Downum hit him in the back with the pliers as he was leaving.”
The original affidavit says Downum’s arm showed a scratch after the incident.
Brough took himself to the hospital and later lost his eye, court documents say.
“(Brough) better explained the sequence of, and reasons for, the events of that day,” wrote Lavery in his order. “Mr. Downum’s claim that Mr. Brough attacked without warning, trying to force his way into the trailer, did not make sense.”
Brough’s movements in the courtroom revealed that he’s “an elderly man with limited mobility” for whom launching a random attack would not be plausible, added Lavery.
Lavery’s order says Downum appeared to launch a “diminished capacity” defense in support of his claim that he had a reasonable belief, during the stabbing, that he was under attack.
But no laws or cases have married Wyoming’s diminished capacity or insanity defense to the “reasonable belief” by which a person may lawfully act with self-defense in the state, the judge added.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
