Man gets 4 years in attack on sisters

A Merrillville man was sentenced to the maximum four years in the Indiana Department of Correction on Wednesday for attacking his child’s mother and her sister inside a Schererville apartment earlier this year.

Charles McCloud-Smith, 28, of the 6900 block of Jackson Court, signed a plea agreement on Sept. 1.

He agreed to plead guilty to battery resulting in moderate bodily injury and domestic battery resulting in moderate bodily injury, both level 6 felonies. The sentenced called for up to four years to be served in Lake County Jail. The judge instead sentenced him to the Department of Correction.

Defense lawyer Gojko Kasich objected earlier in the hearing to the child’s mother’s filed victim impact statement, saying it contained numerous allegations and other crimes that had nothing to do with the specific case.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Nadia Wardrip agreed to limit its scope. McCloud-Smith’s record included three juvenile convictions, eight misdemeanor, five felony convictions and five probation violations, she said.

McCloud-Smith was accused of breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s Schererville apartment, attacking the woman and her sister while shouting, “You’re going to die tonight,” according to police records.

McCloud-Smith read a prepared letter in court, asking for leniency.

He cited a tough upbringing, born to parents with a drug addiction and adopted at age 2.

He was charged at 15 in Porter County adult court with threatening classmates on a Portage school bus during the 200809 year, including sexually harassing female students and exposing himself, he said.

That damaged his mental health, because he should have been tried in juvenile court, he said.

He was “ambitious” with “goals,” he said. “Every day, I have the desire to do better.”

It was the one of the “most eloquent statement(s) I’ve seen,” Kasich said.

The lawyer said McCloud-Smith’s past convictions were an “aggregator” that would affect his sentence. His father recently had a stroke and his mother needed him to help care for him, Kasich said.

McCloud-Smith’s “frustration boiled over,” because he thought the woman was limiting access to their child, which drove what happened, the lawyer said.

The challenge was evaluating McCloud-Smith as a whole person, Judge Natalie Bokota said.

“Whatever dreams or hopes that you have for the future cannot become reality if you continue to sabotage yourself,” she said.

While he was clearly “intelligent” and “eloquent,” he was also “violent,” “dishonest” and “irresponsible,” Bokota said.

Despite what you read in the media, the criminal justice system works every day to rehabilitate offenders, Bokota said during another hearing.

What about that point, McCloudSmith asked.

“The (Department of Correction) will give you a plethora of rehabilitation options,” the judge said, noting his prior

probation violations.

His “reprimand” was “inappropriate,” she said in court later.

He said he would appeal. The attack occurred March 5 after he allegedly scaled the building to break into the apartment through the second-floor patio, where he encountered the first victim. The woman was sleeping on the couch when she told police she could feel a presence in the room, according to a release from Schererville Police Deputy Chief Jeffery Cook.

When she opened her eyes and saw him, she got up to try and alert her sister when McCloud Smith allegedly attacked saying he was going to kill her as he tried to gouge the woman’s eyes out with his bare hands, the woman told police, according to the charging documents.

The sister, who shares a 3-year-old child with Smith, came out of the bedroom and attempted to stop the attack, according to the documents. The man turned on her and then allegedly stabbed her multiple times with a metal kitchen fork, yelling, “You’re going to die tonight.”