Man gets 10 years in prison for brutal beating in South Buffalo

But it was his robbery at gunpoint in South Buffalo while wearing a paroled GPS ankle monitor that led to his 10-year prison sentence Monday.

U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. sentenced Holmes, 40, after he pleaded guilty to robbery and brandishing a firearm to commit a violent crime.

Assistant United States Attorney Nicholas Cooper said Holmes chased his victim through the streets of South Buffalo on July 31, 2021. When Holmes caught the man on the porch of a home, he punched him with a gun and told an accomplice to “take everything” from him, including $1,500 in cash, drugs and an iPhone. The victim, bloodied and in the fetal position, was stripped of his pants and underwear, Cooper said. The victim was hospitalized for 12 days with a “horrific injury” to his eye caused by Holmes’ “gratuitous brutality,” Cooper said.

Sinatra had to sentence Holmes to at least seven years in prison for the firearms offense, and defense attorney Nicholas Texido asked the judge to no longer incarcerate him.

Texido, in a court filing, said Holmes’ crimes were never directed against members of the general public but rather against “other people engaged in the same lifestyle.”

Cooper, seeking a 12-year prison term, said sentencing guidelines do not suggest sentence reductions for defendants who victimize other criminals.

Additionally, Holmes sent his associates to confront neighborhood residents who provided surveillance videos to law enforcement, making them feel threatened and intimidated, Cooper said.

“Holmes’ life has been in peril since his youth,” Texido told the judge.

When Holmes was a young child, his father began selling crack cocaine and his mother became a drug addict.

“He was a child,” Texido told the judge Monday. “He never got advice from his parents like we did.”

At age 17, Holmes was shot, hit in the head and elbow. Two years later, in 2002, Holmes was shot again, this time in the left arm and stomach.

“Before he was even 20 years old, Holmes had witnessed only the worst aspects of society, including domestic violence, drug addiction, drug dealing and gun violence,” Texido said in a court filing .

In 2005, a jury found Holmes guilty of first-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting a man on Linwood Avenue. In this case, Holmes snatched a gun from the man who was intending him harm, and he shot him, according to Texido. Holmes immediately ran to the hospital, reported the incident and turned the gun over to authorities.

Holmes spent his entire youth in state prison, compounding the negative effects of his troubled childhood, Texido said.

“Should he pay for his crimes? Of course,” Texido told the judge Monday. “We’re not asking for a free pass. We’re asking for 84 months.”

“I’m trying to change my life,” Holmes told Sinatra, apologizing for his crime.

During his decade in state prison, Holmes had the opportunity to receive counseling and treatment and learn how to “get on the right track,” Cooper said.

“He hasn’t taken any steps to change his life,” Cooper told the judge.