Stern sentence

COEUR d’ALENE — The Post Falls man who shot Timothy I. Williams (Wolfe) in downtown Coeur d’Alene last May was sentenced to up to 28 years in prison on Friday.

The packed courtroom remained seated after 1st District Judge John Luster issued the sentence, and watched silently as bailiffs led Juan Carlos Aldana-Villanueva, 23, cuffed at the ankles, waist and hands, out of the courtroom.

Dozens of Wolfe’s friends and family met outside the courtroom shortly after to hug, cry and share words of encouragement.

“It’s over, it’s over,” said Juanita Wolfe, Timothy Wolfe’s grandmother. “I’m just glad it’s over for everybody, everybody, the community, the family.”

Twenty of the 28 years are fixed, with the remaining eight indeterminate. After Aldana-Villanueva, who was living in the United States illegally, serves the sentence he will be deported back to his home country of Honduras.

“I guess I can say I’m OK with it,” Juanita Wolfe said of the 28-year sentence. “It’s been a very hard year. Mother’s Day was hard. But we have a lot of friends and family who have helped us through with their support and that has helped.”

Aldana-Villanueva shot Wolfe, 21, on Third Street in downtown Coeur d’Alene in the early morning hours of May 9, 2009, after he had a verbal argument with Tim Wolfe’s friends inside Mic ’n Mac’s bar.

Wolfe, a Montana college student, was in town at the time visiting family for the Mother’s Day weekend.

Witnesses of the altercation described Wolfe as the peace maker at the scene. They said it began when a friend of Wolfe’s, James Samuels, took a drink Aldana-Villanueva’s girlfriend, Alba Martinez, had ordered.

They said Wolfe helped defuse the situation by shaking the shooter’s hand before Aldana-Villanueva left the bar with Martinez.

But Aldana-Villanueva drove back to Coeur d’Alene after dropping Martinez off at their Post Falls home. He even tried to go to bed before getting back in his car to go look for retribution, according to Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Barry McHugh, which showed malice and premeditation.

“It was all about getting respect,” McHugh said.

Luster told Aldana-Villanueva that the tragedy that started as young people having fun on the weekend, “was a very senseless act.”

“The only true justice in a case like this is if I could make you disappear from this earth and (Timothy Wolfe) somehow appear,” he said.

The fatal confrontation occurred when Aldana-Villanueva drove up to Wolfe and Samuels after the bar had closed. Wolfe threw at least one punch. Prosecuting attorneys said that punch was thrown after Wolfe saw the weapon.

Defense attorneys said Aldana-Villanueva fired his .25 caliber pistol from the driver’s seat of his Honda out of self-defense before speeding away.

“It’s frustrating to watch this occur,” Luster said, discrediting the self-defense argument. “There’s really no rhyme or reason.”

Aldana-Villanueva pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on March 22. Before the judge at Friday’s sentencing was the possibility of probation up to a mandatory life sentence as punishment.

Defense attorneys sought a 15-year fixed sentence, asking the judge to consider Aldana-Villanueva’s difficult upbringing fleeing an abusive father from Honduras to New York City and eventually Post Falls.

Prosecutors sought 30 years, 28 fixed. Luster left eight years of indeterminate time on the sentence to encourage Aldana-Villanueva to strive for good behavior while in state prison.

He was credited for one year of time served.

Aldana-Villanueva addressed the court through a Spanish-speaking interpreter.

“Forgive me,” he both began and ended his statement. “It hurts me to accept the reality that I have caused such emptiness.”

Wolfe was a father and member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe who played basketball for Salish Kootenai College, a tribal college on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Pablo, Mont.

“Tim was a forgiving person,” said Charlotte Nilson, Timothy Wolfe’s mother, from the stand. “Let’s continue to celebrate the life of Tim.”

Nilson asked everyone in the courtroom not to dwell on hate, vengeance or animosity, but instead focus on the lives left and the healing power of moving forward from tragedy.

“It’s not easy losing a child,” she said to the court. “But with your love and kindness you’ve warmed our hearts.”

Afterward, Nilson gathered outside the courthouse with dozens of friends and family.

“I just want to thank you all for being here,” she told the crowd. “I love you all so much.”