An inmate who attacked a female mental health counselor after trapping her inside the Clark County Jail’s medical unit last year was sentenced Tuesday to 15.5 years in prison.
Gregory Wright, 35, of Vancouver was found guilty last month by a Clark County Superior Court jury of first-degree kidnapping and attempted second-degree assault. He had been incarcerated on a pending charge of failure to register as a sex offender at the time of the incident.
Deputy Prosecutor James Smith said Wright has more than a dozen convictions, including several that are violent felonies and crimes against women. “The defendant can only be described as a career felon at this point,” he said.
Court records show that Wright met with mental health counselor Kristine Nystrom on Jan. 13, 2015. They first met in a residential pod at the jail. However, Wright asked if they could talk in Nystrom’s office in the jail’s medical unit, and she agreed. They kept the door open so that a corrections deputy could see inside.
Shortly into their conversation, Wright stood up like he was going to leave the office and asked Nystrom, “What can you do for me?,” according to court documents.
He then kicked out the doorstop, closed the door and struck Nystrom in the face, knocking her to the floor, court records said.
Nystrom testified at trial that when she got up, Wright grabbed her by the neck, but she escaped his grasp. He then attempted to barricade the door with a heavy metal desk from inside the office. She dove behind the desk, she said, and Wright pulled at the neck of her sweater.
Corrections deputies heard Nystrom screaming for help, forced the door open and pulled her out of the room.
After the incident, Wright told detectives that he remembered speaking with Nystrom but didn’t remember attacking her.
On Tuesday, Smith asked Judge Scott Collier to sentence Wright to 16.5 years in prison.
Wright’s defense attorney, Louis Byrd Jr., argued for the lowest possible sentence: 149 months. He said he thinks there will be an appellate review of Wright’s case.
“There’s no doubt the victim was afraid, but we still have to stick to the facts,” Byrd said, adding that there were “prejudices at play” in Wright’s case. Wright is a black man, and Nystrom is a white woman.
Wright told the court that some of his crimes, including a sex offense, were committed when he was a juvenile. He asked Collier not to hold it against him.
“I regret that we have to be here like this,” Wright said. “It seems like Mr. Smith is painting the picture of a big, bad monster.”
Collier said what’s baffling about the case is why it happened. “That’s the puzzling part,” he said. “There’s no way you were going to get away with anything.”
He sentenced Wright to 186 months in prison and 36 months of community custody.
Wright also is facing a murder charge. He is accused of strangling 19-year-old Daytona Hudgins, whose body was discovered at a homeless camp July 19, 2014.
