A Brush Prairie man who pleaded guilty to assault last week in a 2016 stabbing at a party near the Tarbell Trail was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison.
Zachary J. Fenn, 25, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault June 5. Deputies arrested Fenn in February 2016, several days after responding to a large party near the trailhead, about 6 miles southeast of Yacolt.
According to court records, Fenn stabbed Brayden McVae after a fight broke out at the party, sending him to the hospital with serious injuries.
The judge’s sentence comes after negotiations between Fenn and the prosecutor’s office, and includes an enhancement for use of a deadly weapon.
In court on Thursday, McVae leaned forward to make eye contact with Fenn. He said the injury led to him losing his job, that he was in constant pain and has trouble using his right arm.
At the sentencing, Fenn’s attorney, Erin Bradley McAleer, and family members said what happened was self-defense: His brothers were taking a serious beating, and he had to make a decision, they said.
“I am sorry, I truly am sorry,” Fenn said. “I didn’t understand — I didn’t think about the outcome. … I just wanted to protect me and my friends and my brothers.”
McAleer said they conceded that a knife was outside the scope of justifiable self-defense that night.
Superior Court Judge Gregory Gonzales agreed.
“Bringing a knife to a fistfight. Absolutely ridiculous,” he said, adding that many people in prison are there for bringing far more than a knife to fights, and it would behoove Fenn to think about that.
Gonzales also agreed to the recommended term, sentencing Fenn to 36 months in prison.
