An Abbot man who pleaded guilty in February to a charge of manslaughter in connection with the shooting death of his father in Parkman in 2015 was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in the state prison.
Zachary Grant, 38, faced a maximum of 30 years in prison, according to Assistant Attorney General John Alsop, who prosecuted the case before Justice Robert Mullen in Piscataquis County Superior Court in Dover-Foxcroft.
The full sentence Thursday was 25 years in prison with all but 18 years suspended and four years of probation upon his release, Alsop said Thursday afternoon.
In exchange for the guilty plea, a charge of murder was dismissed.
Grant was arrested in May 2015 and charged with murder. He later was hospitalized for treatment of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face, first at Eastern Maine Medical Center and later at Acadia Hospital in Bangor. Alsop said Grant appears to have recovered from the gunshot wound, but may have been left impaired in one eye.
Maine State Police detectives said David Grant, 61, was found shot to death May 12 in the front yard of his mobile home at 114 Packard Road in Parkman, a back road between Route 150 and the Dexter town line. The state medical examiner determined that David Grant died from multiple gunshot wounds.
Zachary Grant, who told detectives he was drunk and didn’t take his medication, said he does not remember fatally shooting his father.
Alsop said several people, including David Grant’s surviving partner, spoke on behalf of Grant in court Thursday afternoon, asking for a light sentence.
“They asked for the shortest possible sentence that the judge felt comfortable giving,” Alsop said. “It sounded like they were very sympathetic to the defendant. They wanted to help him out.”
Alsop said his office recommended a sentence of 27 years in prison with all but 22 years suspended. Grant’s lawyer, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor, asked for a sentence of 18 years with all but eight to 10 years suspended, he said.
Silverstein did not immediately return a call Thursday afternoon for comment on the sentence.
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
Twitter:@Doug_Harlow
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