OKLAHOMA CITY – An appellate court has upheld the revocation of a suspended prison sentence granted to a southwest Oklahoman whose criminal record includes five felonies and multiple misdemeanors in five counties.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the January 2020 revocation of a five-year suspended sentence approved for Lucas Dante Christon two years earlier in Cotton County.
On Oct. 13, 2017, Christon was arrested in Walters for driving without a license, pleaded guilty and spent two weeks in the county jail. At that time he listed an address in Snyder.
Christon was arrested again by Walters police two months later, on Dec. 17, 2017, and charged with one felony (endangering others while attempting to elude a police officer after former convictions of felonies) and two misdemeanors (destruction of property and driving while his license was suspended, second offense).
Two days later Christon was charged with three counts of threatening to perform an act of violence while confined in the Cotton County jail. At that time he listed an address in Lawton.
He pleaded guilty to all charges on Jan 11, 2018. He received a 10-year prison sentence on the felony charge, with five of that suspended, plus a $1,000 fine; a year in the Cotton County Jail and a $300 fine on the two misdemeanors; and a six-month suspended sentence on the three threat charges. All six sentences were to run concurrently.
A motion to revoke his suspended sentence was filed two years later after Walters police arrested him Jan. 2, 2020, for domestic assault and battery on his wife.
“The decision to revoke a suspended sentence … lies within the discretion of the trial court, and … will not be disturbed unless the trial court is shown to have abused its discretion,” the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote. “The relevant standard is whether the defendant received a fundamentally fair hearing.” Christon did.
Furthermore, “The facts clearly show” that Christon’s wife “was assaulted and the only person who could have done it” was Christon, Assistant Oklahoma Attorney General Keeley L. Miller informed the appellate judges.
The revocation was affirmed unanimously by the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Christon’s criminal career apparently began in 2003, when he was convicted in three counties – Comanche, Jackson and Kiowa – on charges of unauthorized use of motor vehicles and one charge of concealing stolen property.
In 2004 he pleaded guilty in Woodward County to having escaped from William S. Key prison near Fort Supply.
In 2015 he was convicted in Comanche County of escape after an arrest.
State Corrections Department records indicate Christon was imprisoned from March 9, 2004, to June 10, 2014; from Dec. 18, 2015, to May 22, 2017; from Jan. 17, 2018, to Nov. 18, 2019; and since Feb. 11, 2020. Christon, who will be 35 in a month, is confined in the state penitentiary at McAlester.