DeBerry sentenced to 40 years in 2024 downtown assault
Shaun DeBerry was sentenced Dec. 18 to 40 years with the Montana Department of Corrections, with none suspended, a 20-year parole restriction and $709,000 in restitution for his role in the September 2024 downtown assault that left a man with a brain injury.
He’s credited for 466 days of time served so far in the county jail.
Deberry was 19 at the time of the assault and was initially charged with a felony count of aggravated assault, which prosecutors upgraded to accountability for attempted deliberate homicide.
In September, he signed a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to an amended felony charge of accountability for robbery.
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A person convicted of that charge faces a prison term of not less than two years or more than 40 years and may be fined up to $50,000.
Prosecutors didn’t make a sentencing recommendation in the plea agreement and during the Dec. 18 hearing, DeBerry’s defense attorney Tyler Fries recommended a 20 year DOC commitment with 12 suspended.
A compilation of surveillance video from different angles of the Sept. 8, 2024 assault was shown during the Dec. 18 hearing and family members of both the victim, Jake Kraus, and DeBerry testified.
Kraus’ wife and mother moved to the other side of the courtroom to watch the video, visibly emotional as it played.
Det. Travis Burow of the Great Falls Police Department described what was happening in the video and said that DeBerry initially told investigators that Kraus had pulled a knife and they reacted in self defense. Burow said it’s clear in the video that Kraus never took a knife out of his pocket, but the defendants are seen going through his pockets and taking a knife.
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Chrissy Kraus, the victim’s wife, read a statement, saying that Sept. 8, 2024 had been her 35th birthday and they’d been out celebrating. It was supposed to be a happy day, but will forever be remembered as the day that DeBerry and his friends “nearly killed my husband.”
She said Jake Kraus had suffered from addiction and served a prison sentence for an associated nonviolent crime. They met after that, she said, and he’d worked hard to turn his life around and be a good father for their son who was four at the time of the attack.
She’d finished nursing school, so he’d enrolled in welding school at Great Falls College MSU and would have graduated this year and started his apprenticeship, a plan altered by the assault.
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The night of the assault, Chrissy Kraus said she couldn’t find her husband and was worried, when a detective called asking her to come to the police department because he’d been involved in an assault.
At the station, she said it quickly became clear he’d been assaulted and when she went to the hospital, she found him on a ventilator with staples in his head, “lying there lifeless.”
As a nurse, she’d worked on the surgical floor and said she knew it was bad when the trauma surgeon walked into Jake Kraus’ room.
An MRI confirmed severe brain damage, she said, and she was told that her husband likely wouldn’t survive and if he did, his quality of life would be poor.
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Jake Kraus survived, but off the ventilator, he was unable to walk, use the bathroom or eat initially, which was “gut wrenching and devastating,” she said.
Jake Kraus was transported to Denver, then Omaha for care, which was costly and disrupted their family life, she said.
Chrissy Kraus said that previously, he loved spending time with their son, but was less able to do so now and the assault “robbed our son of the best father.”
He’s not the same person he was before the assault, she said and asked Judge Dave Grubich to consider the negligent actions of DeBerry and those with him that night that “handed out a life sentence to Jake,” and the “loss of the man I married and father of our son.”
Carrie McGlynn, Jake Kraus’ mother, said that it was “terrifying” to watch the video and couldn’t imagine the fear her son felt during the assault.
“Jake will struggle in so many ways for the rest of his life,” McGlynn said, and he was a good father, but that had been ripped away.
“I am so deeply heartbroken,” she said.
Juvenile’s charge upgraded to attempted homicide in Sept. 8 assault case [2024]
Mark Kraus, the victim’s father, said “the Jake Kraus as we knew…is gone. Everything he worked for is gone.”
He said DeBerry and the other two charged in the assault “should have to pay as long as Jake does…a lifetime.”
Sarah Kepler, the victim’s sister-in-law, said it was a senseless attack that broke two people who “were becoming a beautiful family.”
She said there was a fire in Jake’s eyes building a life with her sister and their son before the assault.
“That fire’s gone,” Kepler said. “It’s a life sentence for Jake mostly, but maybe for his son more.”
She said she believed DeBerry should receive the maximum sentence, but “I still don’t think that’s enough for what was robbed of Jake that night.”
Chris DeBerry, Shaun’s uncle, said, “there’s nothing that can be said today that can take back what’s happened,” and apologized to the Kraus family on behalf of the DeBerry family.
He said that his nephew “is not the evil person that people think he is” and was a good kid who made a mistake.
Two more charged in Sept. 8 assault; two women charged in connection with missing 12-year-old [2024]
Ronald DeBerry, Shaun’s grandfather, said that 40 years ago, he’d sat in the same courtroom being sentenced for aggravated assault in an incident of four airmen against him and a friend that ended with him pulling a knife and stabbing one person seven times and the other one time.
He said he spent time in prison and another nine years on probation, but then built a better life, learning from his mistakes.
The people Shaun was with the night of the assault weren’t his friends, Ronald DeBerry said, and that Shaun had made three or four bad decisions in his life, “this being the worst.”
Ronald DeBerry said his grandson grew up with a mom struggling with addiction and an absent father, so other family members had to help raise him.
Melissa DeBerry, Shaun DeBerry, said her son wasn’t a criminal and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.
She said he was drinking when the assault happened and that she’d struggled with a meth addiction.
She said that she encouraged him to get his GED and become a barber.
Tabitha Sangrey, Shaun’s step mother, but is no longer married to his father, said that he’d been a quiet, happy, child who wanted to be loved.
She said she was surprised to hear he was involved in the assault and “it breaks my heart that he’s found himself in this position. A tragic situation.”
Ryan Ball, who prosecuted the case for the Cascade County Attorney’s Office, said that he wasn’t making a sentencing recommendation, but that DeBerry had been on probation less than two months from a previous case in which he beat a puppy to death with a pipe when the assault occurred.
If DeBerry is interested in turning his life around, he “hasn’t started yet,” Ball said.
While DeBerry’s been in jail for the assault, he’s been written up for breaking rules and was involved in two assaults including one in August, Ball said.
Tyler Fries, DeBerry’s defense attorney, said that they weren’t hiding from the fact that incarceration would be part of the punishment, but that he needed treatment and structure.
He said that DeBerry had admitted what he did and “he feels awful for what he did.”
DeBerry said in court that he apologized to Kraus and his family, his own family and the community “for my stupid and unnecessary actions. I am so sorry for the pain and struggle,” that he caused. “I’m sorry I ruined this family’s life.”
Judge David Grubich said that he has to consider multiple factors in sentencing under state law.
“We all watched what you did,” Grubich said of the surveillance video of the assault, in which it appeared to him that they had multiple opportunities to walk away, but kept following the victim.
DeBerry threw a Sprite can at the back of Kraus’ head and once he was on the ground, the boys kicked and stomped on him.
“As he lay motionless in an alley, you walked away,” Grubich said.
DeBerry didn’t look drunk in the video, he said, and “I think you knew exactly what you were doing that night.”
Watching the video was “horrific, animalistic, it’s terrifying…especially for the person enduring it,” Grubich said. This was a group of people, some on bicycles, stalking the victim, “by a bunch of people who were filled with hate. [The victim] didn’t stand a chance.”
DeBerry mentioned in his statement that his brain was still developing, to which Grubich responded, “Jacob’s brain was developed. Then it was destroyed, by you. The bright light that he was was literally and figuratively stomped out by you. I don’t want to downplay how close this came to a man being dead.”
As Grubich spoke, Chrissy Kraus and McGlynn reached for each other to hold hands.
Grubich said it wasn’t only the Kraus family impacted, but also the DeBerry family who has to watch what’s happening.
Grubich said that he’s seen DeBerry in his court in multiple cases and didn’t believe he’d seen emotion or empathy from him.
In sentencing DeBerry for the case involving the puppy’s death, Grubich said he gave him an opportunity to follow the rules and improve his life.
But, he was drinking the next day, in violation of his conditions.
“You spit in the court’s face,” Grubich said.
The apparent randomness and brutality of the assault also impacted the greater Great Falls community as it increased fear for the general public.
Grubich said he believed DeBerry was a high risk for future violence and while he considered the mitigating factors of his family background, “I don’t think you hold yourself accountable.”
As Grubich announced the sentence, family members of both Kraus and DeBerry broke down crying.
Under the type of plea agreement Deberry signed in September, the court was free to impose a sentence it deems appropriate and Deberry could not withdraw his guilty plea.
In establishing the facts, Deberry’s defense attorney asked him if he remembered the details of the incident.
Deberry replied, “somewhat,” but admitted to following Kraus into the alley and throwing a soda, hitting the victim in the head, then hitting, punching, kicking and stomping on him several times, then going through his pockets with the intent of stealing. The prosecution said Deberry took a knife from Kraus’ pocket.
A person convicted of accountability to attempted deliberate homicide faces life in prison, or a term of not less than 10 years or more than 100 years, but it also requires prosecutors to prove intent, according to the Cascade County Attorney’s Office.
Ethanel Pherigo and Jesse Edwards, Jr., were also charged in the incident.
Pherigo was 19 at the time of the time of the assault and Edwards was 14.
Pherigo was scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 11, but there was a scheduling conflict for attorneys on the case and one attorney then had a family emergency.
His sentencing was rescheduled for Oct. 24, but was delayed again and is currently scheduled for Feb. 6.
Pherigo appeared in court for a June 4 status hearing, after signing a plea agreement over the winter, but then firing his attorney and prosecutors thought he was considering withdrawing his guilty plea.
During the June 4 hearing, Pherigo told his new attorney, Sam Harris, that he was ready to proceed with his case.
Since he signed an agreement to plead guilty to robbery in exchange for the state dropping the aggravated assault charge, the case moved to sentencing and the prosecution is recommending 40 years in the Montana State Prison.
During the June 4 hearing, Harris said they were prepared to move to sentencing, but Ryan Ball said the prosecution wasn’t yet prepared since they had several people to testify about the effects of the assault, including the victim.
According to prosecutors, Pherigo’s family was also planning to attend his sentencing hearing.
Edwards was 14 at the time of the assault and was initially charged with felony aggravated assault in juvenile court.
Prosecutors upgraded his charge to deliberate attempted homicide last fall, but his case is still pending as the court determines whether to try him as an adult or a youth.
A transfer hearing was scheduled for Sept. 23, but was continued shortly after it was set to begin.
The transfer hearing has not yet been held.
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