Man sentenced for 2022 homicide

Sentencing has been handed down to a Pontiac man who killed another about two years ago and then made a plea deal with prosecutors.

At a hearing Friday morning in Oakland County Circuit Court, Judge Cheryl Matthews ordered Julius Standifer to spend 23-60 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Troy Duane Jones, with concurrent sentences of 2360 years for assault with intent to murder and 76 months-60 years for felon in possession of a firearm.

Standifer also was given another five years in prison for three counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, which he’s already satisfied due to credit for 719 days he’s served in the Oakland County Jail.

Standifer, 53, pleaded guilty last December to the crimes after prosecutors dismissed a first-degree homicide charge and added the lesser charge of second-degree homicide.

Jones was found dead in the driver’s seat of a car that had run into a fence and snowbank in a party store parking lot on Feb 19, 2022 in Pontiac. He was 49 years old. Standifer was reportedly an acquaintance of Jones who had picked him up a few blocks away from where the crashed car was found. Standifer also shot Jones’ girlfriend in the hand.

An Oakland County Sheriff’s deputy on routine patrol in Pontiac arrested Standifer the day after the shootings.

According to Jones’ obituary, he was affectionately known as “Punch.” He was the father of five sons and a daughter.

At the time of the slaying, Standifer was on probation for a 2021 conviction for assaulting/resisting/obstructing a police officer and driving on a suspended license.