Two men get jail and work-release in shooting, illegal entry case
ADRIAN — An “unusual circumstance” and a “toxic relationship,” as defense attorneys described a pair of related cases, led to jail and work-release sentences in circuit and district courts.
The cases included a shooting that was the result of a dispute between two Adrian men, ElShabazz Donnell-Shakwan Russell, 26, and Undra Lemonth Peterson, 27.
Russell was charged in May with assault with intent to murder and felony firearms from the shooting. Charges of carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent and carrying a concealed weapon were added in June. Peterson was charged in November with third-degree home invasion from an incident in Adrian in March.
Russell pleaded no contest in November to one count of felonious assault and another count of possession of analogues in another case. Peterson also pleaded guilty in November to a reduced misdemeanor count of unlawful entry.
In a preliminary examination in June, Peterson, 27, identified Russell as the man who shot him as he sat in his SUV at about 6:30 p.m. May 2. Peterson said he was driving in his large SUV to his father’s house when he saw Russell and his estranged wife, Maggie Peterson, walking out of one of the apartment buildings at the corner of South Winter and Dawes streets and stopped to talk to Russell.
Russell came up to the passenger-side, front window and the conversation became heated with Russell saying, “I keep it in the street,” Undra Peterson said. As Peterson turned his head to flick a cigarette butt out of the driver’s window, he said out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash and smoke and heard a gunshot come from the passenger window. He was struck in the leg, and drove to his mother’s home. His twin sister then drove him to ProMedica Bixby Hospital. He was later taken to ProMedica Toledo Hospital for surgery to remove bullet fragments from his leg.
Maggie Peterson testified in the preliminary examination of the shooting charges that two or three days before the shooting, Undra Peterson broke into her apartment and found Russell in her bed. She said Undra dragged the still-sleeping Russell out of bed and punched him several times before running off. She said she and Russell did not want to call police about it.
“You know how close you came to prison,” Lenawee County Circuit Judge Margaret M.S. Noe told Russell before sentencing him Wednesday. She ordered him to spend one year in the Lenawee County Jail, with credit for 250 days already served on the assault charge. She said he can be released to the Twin County Probation Center in Three Rivers after nine months in jail. She also put him on probation for five years, ordered him to not have contact with Undra Peterson and assessed court costs.
Russell’s attorney, David I. Goldstein of Ann Arbor, told the court the sentence was appropriate considering the case’s “unusual circumstance.”
When Peterson was sentenced Jan. 4 in Lenawee County District Court, his court-appointed attorney, Ashley Hanson-Grimes of Adrian, said the men and Maggie Peterson have a “toxic relationship.” She said Undra Peterson went to Maggie Peterson’s home on March 9 to take their child because he was concerned she was doing drugs, and she didn’t want him there, so he forced his way into the apartment.
Peterson told Judge Laura J. Schaedler at the time of the incident he already had called Child Protective Services and the police about his concerns with his child. Since then, he said, the child has been taken from him and he has been attending a parenting class in Monroe as well as working seven days a week at an auto parts plant in Saline.
Hanson-Grimes asked for a probation sentence, saying Peterson had had success on probation before.
Schaedler sentenced him to 10 days on work release at the Lenawee Development Corp. and assessed $135 in attorney fees. She declined to order probation, saying it likely wouldn’t help if he already was working daily 12-hour shifts and attending the parenting class.