STANTON, Mich. — Arik Chapman didn’t leave a Montcalm County courtroom quietly Thursday, after his sentencing hearing for nearly strangling a sheriff’s sergeant last April. He was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison.
The Daily News posted a video on Twitter and Facebook in which you can hear the 36-year-old Chapman, of Edmore, losing his temper while being sentenced on 19 criminal counts, including second-degree arson, assault by strangulation or suffocation, disarming a police officer and resisting a dozen police officers. Chapman was jury-convicted in October.
Chapman swore several times in his conversation with Circuit Judge Ronald Shafer and Sergeant Steven Snyder. The footage bleeps out several of the more profane comments. “Fifty years, 75 it doesn’t matter. I’m coming back on appeal you (bleep).”
Chapman reportedly has other outstanding charges in Montcalm and Isabella counties, including child sexually-abusive activity, accosting a child for immoral purposes, furnishing alcohol to a minor, and using a computer to commit a crime. Sergeant Snyder went to Chapman’s home on April 4th to speak with him about those charges. That’s when the altercation occurred.
The Daily News reported that defense attorney Ryan Villet had admitted Chapman maliciously destroyed Sergeant Snyder’s holster, and the hood of a retired deputy’s police cruiser during the April incident. He then led several police officers on a chase, set fire to a house and attempted to carjack a vehicle in downtown Edmore.
