A Gary man got the maximum 15 ½ years Thursday in a plea deal that included trying to set his then-girlfriend on fire when she tried to break up with him.
Aaron White, 38, pleaded guilty in documents filed Dec. 12 for four counts of criminal recklessness and one count of obstruction of justice.
His ex-girlfriend told police she was sleeping around 7 a.m. Dec. 21, 2020, on the 5000 block of Connecticut Street when her phone beeped, showing White walking up to the home on a security camera. After they broke up Nov. 20, he tried to “set her on fire,” documents show.
She had filed a protection order Nov. 30, records show.
White ripped off the camera and doorbell, came back and hit the camera with a brick, records state. He then broke the front living room window with a brick, walking around the side, documents state. The woman’s daughter, 20, heard a “commotion” and got up to find the living room window broken, walking back to find White throwing a brick into her bedroom window, charges state.
The ex-girlfriend called the police as he tried to break through the front door, but was deterred by metal door security screens on both sides, documents state. When he ran across the street to an abandoned house, she called her ex-husband, telling him to come and get their daughter out.
The father arrived around 7:40 a.m. with his current wife. The daughter had gotten her stuff and was walking to his pickup truck when she heard “six or seven” shots. She jumped in the back seat as her dad took off, records state.
The adult daughter said in court Thursday that the fire incident was imprinted in her memory and she has since moved several states away.
Special Prosecutor Joseph Morrison read a letter from the ex-girlfriend, who sat in court.
After an argument, White dumped a whole bottle of lighter fluid on her, before he tried to light it, then choked her inside in front of her daughters, 20 and 11, she wrote.
When he later opened fire at the moving truck, it was “one of the absolute worst moments of my life,” she said.
White kept trying to contact her, or got others to, asking her not to show up for court, as recently as September.
His mother Gwenell Fleming White Sandifer said he had a tough childhood and struggled with mental health.
“I think he needs help,” she said. “Prison is not the place.”
Morrison, a Jasper County prosecutor, asked for the maximum, noting a history of crimes, including arson, burglary, and a hit-and-run.
He said White got a break with a lower-level felony with the lighter fluid incident.
“Personally, if I had been a prosecutor, I would have charged attempted murder,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Defense lawyer Adam Tavitas said the case had been pending for a long time. In the meanwhile, White represented himself in a federal gun case.
He got 40 months, which was time served with two years on supervised release by Thursday’s hearing.
As a client, he was “very bright,” but struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues for “a long time.”
Tavitas said he was his first lawyer in the county case before White opted to represent himself, then Tavitas took over again.
White apologized for his “mental instability” that stopped him from showing up for his August trial, which was rescheduled.
He said the woman took his recording equipment, which set events in motion.
“I’m not a threat to (the woman) and her family,” he said. He tried reaching out, violating a no-contact order, while “trying to resolve the situation.”
“I want this out of my life as much as they do,” White said.
After Judge Gina Jones took a brief recess, she returned, saying she “struggled,” but ultimately accepted the plea, saying it would close the criminal chapter.
“They are done,” she said of the victims.
mcolias@post-trib.com
