A judge sentenced an East Chicago man to an 8-year split sentence Wednesday in a plea deal on a gun charge.
In return, Deputy Prosecutor Judy Massa said they dropped the voluntary manslaughter case when Ernest “Alonzo” West, Jr. fatally shot his father last year.
“Severe evidentiary issues” made it too hard to prove, she said. Both men ended up shot. West could have pushed self-defense or firing in the “heat” of the moment.
The victim’s children, West’s siblings, who testified Wednesday uniformly asked for prison, not wanting him in the same house again with their elderly mom. Dropping those charges hurt them, Massa acknowledged.
“I understand their pain,” she said, before asking for a maximum 12-year term.
West, 51, was sentenced to six years in prison, one year of work release and one year of probation.
His defense lawyer Josh Mahler said West should only be sentenced for the charge he pleaded guilty — unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
West battled mental illness for the bulk of his life, the lawyer said, which he argued should lower his punishment.
He understood the family’s wishes, but argued it should include “grace” and “context.” Mahler argued it was a “fight” between the two men.
The maximum 12 years was too harsh, his lawyer said; he asked for a 5-year term with time already served in jail and the rest on probation, plus mental health treatment.
His client’s grief “is extreme,” Mahler said.
West spoke briefly. He was “very sorry all this happened.”
Earlier, three siblings gave victim impact statements for the prosecution.
Roberta West-Dorsey, West’s sister, said their father was a good man and a provider. Alonzo lived for years with their parents as a “ticking time bomb,” she said at one point.
Their parents were “hostages” to his anger and emotional dysfunction. She asked Judge Gina Jones to do “whatever the system can do” to help regulate him.
Jermaine West, her brother, echoed her, saying if West was released he would hurt or kill someone else.
A third relative, deeply grieving, who later asked to not be named, told Jones that West’s father, the victim, came from a small Alabama town, was an Army draftee, and retired from the former LTV steel mills in East Chicago.
Jones said she learned a lot from their testimony over what was in court documents, drawn to the man’s mention of the mills, where her grandfather also worked.
“Here in the Region, a lot of us have the same memories,” she said.
She had been “struggling” if she should accept the plea after the voluntary manslaughter case was dropped, but ultimately did, noting West appeared to “shift responsibility” in court reports for the shooting.
“That did not sit well,” she said.
East Chicago police responded July 14, 2023 around midnight to the 2100 block of Joy Lane for a reported murder.
There, they found the victim Ernest West Sr., 86, lying in the front room. There were drops of blood on the home’s front entrance.
West Jr. had also been shot in the leg.
A Ring door video appeared to show West Jr. running to a neighbor’s home with a gun in his hand. West Jr. appeared to be limping and breathing heavily in the video. The man said there were always fights at the house.
