Mark Dickenson got the AA get out of jail card for felony menancing because he threatened his wife with gun. His children begged him not to shoot their Mom. Thank God he listened to them.

2-year probation sentence for Mark Dickenson in menacing case

A man facing charges for pointing a gun at his wife received a two-year probation sentence Wednesday, along with a deferred two-year sentence pending the completion of his probation.

Mark Bradley Dickenson, a Navy veteran who works at the Sterling Correctional Facility, had been suffering from depression, job stress and alcoholism at the time of the incident in April 2011. Statements made in court said he’d been suffering since coming across an inmate who had been tortured and killed in 2009 and that, during the incident, his 5- and 6-year-old children had asked him not to shoot their mother.

He faced charges for felony menacing with a real or simulated weapon, telephone obstruction of service, harassment with strikes, shoves or kicks and harassment involving insults, taunts and challenges.

The probation sentence came with the last count and the deferred two-year sentence came with the first; the other two were dismissed with prejudice. The felony menacing charge will stay on his record as a deferred sentence, but it will be removed if Dickenson completes probation successfully.

Dickenson’s defender Steven Furman first asked the court for a probation sentence, citing a medical evaluation in court that said he was not found to be a dangerous man.

“I’m not here to minimize, rationalize, or depreciate what he did,” Furman said. “He did a terrible thing. He terrified his wife and kids. It’s not because he’s a dangerous man; it’s because of alcoholism and his depression.”

Furman added that Dickenson has since started attending Alcoholics Anonymous classes twice a week and that he still watches over the kids. He said it’s been more than a year since the incident and that Dickenson is doing what he has to do to stay clean.

Deputy District Attorney Zack Balkin agreed that probation would be fitting, but said that a 90-day sentence would be appropriate, too.

All things taken into consideration, it ended about as well as it could, Balkin said, but added Dickenson was a couple of pounds of pressure away from a homicide.