Jeremy Ives is going to have 15 years, in the words of Judge Melissa Lightcap Cianfrini, to contemplate the kind of person he is.
Is he the kind, intelligent, and articulate person of his letters to the court and his appearances in County Court, or is he the man a jury of Genesee County residents said committed a horrible act on Aug. 12, 2022?
Ives was convicted on May 12 at the end of a jury trial of two counts of attempted assault in the first degree and menacing. The jury found that Ives had threatened two people with a shotgun.
In the incident, one person was reportedly injured as a result of Ives firing one shot in the area of 2 Elm St., Batavia.
Since his arrest, through the trial, and into Friday's court appearance, Ives has maintained his innocence.
Assistant District Attorney Will Zickl, who prosecuted Ives, said that one reason Ives deserved the maximum possible sentence on his conviction was his failure to express remorse for his actions on Aug. 12, 2022.
"He's demonstrated he's a danger to the community," Zickl said. "He's expressed no remorse. He's taken no responsibility for his frankly brutal actions."
Zickl said Ives has only spoken in general terms about his conduct, saying he's sorry -- primarily expressed to his family -- in a letter to the court for his behavior.
Joseph Lobosco, the defense attorney, said it wasn't exactly fair to expect Ives to say he is sorry while he is planning an appeal on what he believes is a wrongful conviction.
"He shouldn't be put in a position of needing to express remorse for something he believes he didn't do," Lobosco said.
Zickl said the maximum sentence available, 15 years, wasn't enough. Lobosco asked for the minimum term for his client.
Then Lobosco read a letter from Ives to the court dated June 6.
He expressed his "absolute love" for his family, and said his family extended beyond his blood relations to anybody who had ever helped him in life.
"My family are the people that hold the strongest pieces of my heart that help me focus on my relationship with the gods and the other members of my bloodline and family. My honor is loyalty, and that is my oath, and that is my pride. Concentrating on my family and my faith is what helps me daily in my strive to find inner peace," Ives wrote.
He mentioned his mental health issues, struggles with addiction, and a traumatic brain injury and said he thought he had been doing well with the help of his doctors and medication.
"The issues that I have written about have affected some of the people in my life in negative ways, in different degrees," he wrote. "I have to write these words to these people instead of speaking the words to them and looking into their eyes because of self-inflected situations, but I want each and every one of you to know and believe in your hearths that I am sorry. I apologize for the wrongs I have done."
"I'm a good man, and I love you all with all of my heart," he added.
He promised to return from prison with a greater determination to be good to his family.
"I pray to Odin and all the gods above us to help make me the best man I can be, the best father I can be, the best son I can be, the best brother I can be, and hopefully, the best husband I can be," he wrote. "Over the years, and in the past, I have fallen short of being those things.
"To all the people involved in my life, I swear on my honor I will not allow my addictions or my afflictions to negatively affect my life or my decisions ever again. I will return to my life after this situation more focused than ever before."
After Lobosco finished reading the letter, Ives spoke up for himself. He wanted to address something he saw as a bit of misinformation from Zickl. Zickl criticized Ives for claiming to love his children when, during the pre-sentence investigation, he told an interviewer he didn't know where two of his children currently live.
Ives said he has children aged two to age 25. His two oldest children graduated from college while he has been in custody and he hasn't been able to stay in regular contact with them. That's the only reason, he said, he doesn't know where they are living at the moment.
During the discussion about long-term orders of protection, Ives asked that he be allowed to contact a woman who has children that he considers to also be his children, though he is not the biological father. Cianfrini said if the woman wants to contact the court to modify the order of protection, she could, but Cianfrini said she was issuing a full stay-away order of protection.
Ives also asked for no order of protection for a friend who has helped him during the legal process, but Zickl spoke with the victim's advocate, who was in court for sentencing, and that person reportedly asked for a temporary order of protection to become long-term.
Cianfrini did modify one order of protection to allow Ives' parents to contact a person in order for them to retrieve Ives' personal belongings.
The order of protection will be in place for the length of the sentence imposed by Cianfrini plus eight years. The sentence is for 15 years plus five years post-release supervision.
Cianfrini told Ives his was a perplexing case. He's obviously well-spoken and intelligent, able to advocate for himself, and he has a reputation, which came out at trial, for doing unbidden kind acts for others, such as installing handrails on a stairway that had no handrails.
And though he is mindful that he maintains his innocence and is planning an appeal, he was convicted of a horrific act. He also has five prior DWI convictions and a weapons conviction in Florida.
Those two versions of Jeremy Ives don't fit together, she said.
"You're going to have to reconcile which Jeremy Ives you are going to be when you get out of prison," Cianfrini said. "It's completely up to you as to who you are going to be. You can be the person who does good deeds or you can be the person who commits these kinds of crimes. Only you can make that decision."
