PORT ANGELES — The state Attorney General’s Office has recommended a five-year, 10-month prison sentence for Carlos Avalos, a former Clallam Bay Corrections Center inmate convicted of stabbing a prison officer with a metal shank last February.
Avalos, 20, is scheduled to be sentenced March 10 in Clallam County Superior Court.
A Clallam County jury convicted Avalos of second-degree assault Feb. 13 for stabbing Officer Eric Huether with a 4-inch metal shank at the West End prison Feb. 3, 2014.
Huether suffered numerous cuts to his face, head, neck, hands and torso, eventually recovering from his injuries.
Avalos, who is being held at Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen, is already serving a 10-year sentence for attacking a counselor with a homemade knife at a corrections vocational school in Chehalis in June 2012.
Assistant state Attorney General Joshua Choate said Avalos should be sentenced to the high end of the standard range for the attack on Huether.
“Carlos Avalos is a violent offender with a long, documented history of assaulting correctional staff without provocation,” Choate wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed Monday in Clallam County Superior Court.
“At the time of the current offense, Avalos was serving a 10-year sentence for stabbing a counselor with a shank while the counselor was trying to help him,” the memorandum said.
“Here, Avalos attacked Officer Huether with a shank without any provocation and stabbed him repeatedly.”
Avalos was originally charged with first-degree assault with a deadly weapon for the attack on Huether.
He was convicted of the lesser offense after a five-day jury trial.
The sentencing hearing was reset Wednesday to 9 a.m. March 10.
Avalos has six felony convictions for assaulting corrections staff, Choate said.
He faces a sentencing range of 53 months to 70 months for his most recent conviction.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
