Keto resentenced to treatment on assault charge

A Havre man was resentenced this week for putting another Havre man in the emergency room, requiring reconstructive surgery.

The judge said the sentence will give him a chance to change his life for himself and his family.

Kohl Jolen Keto, born in 1993, admitted last week to committing multiple violations of his probation on a deferred imposition of sentence for a felony count of aggravated assault.

In December, state District Judge Dan Boucher ordered Keto to pay more than $40,000 in restitution and fees and imposed a six-year deferred imposition of sentence.

Tuesday, Boucher revoked the deferred imposition of sentence and resentenced Keto to six years with the state Department of Corrections, suspending the last three years. Boucher recommended Keto be placed in an addiction treatment program, saying he did not believe prison was the proper place for him.

If Keto had not violated any conditions of his release during the six years of probation, he could have requested the felony charge be suspended from his record. With the new sentence, he lost that chance.

Under a plea agreement, Keto pleaded guilty to the charge, filed after his unprovoked assault July 16, 2012, at a house party injured the victim, requiring his treatment with reconstructive surgery by a plastic surgeon.

Keto had several arrests for violating conditions of his release on bond before he entered the plea.

After — and before — his mid-December sentencing, Keto continued to violate conditions of his release. Feb. 7 in Butte, while attending an addiction treatment program, Keto was arrested on a charge of violating conditions of his probation including leaving the treatment program against the advice of the counselors there.

The petition to revoke his deferred imposition says he also missed appointments with his probation officer, provided diluted urine samples for drug and alcohol testing, and drank alcohol or used methamphetamine, opiates or marijuana seven times between Dec. 1 and Jan. 2.

After admitting last week that he had violated the conditions of his release, the prosecutor requested waiting on the disposition of the request to revoke his release to allow a probation officer to attend, saying the prosecution had not anticipated Keto’s admitting to the violations at that hearing.