WOODLAND — A Davis man will avoid prison but serve 120 days in county jail for his role in a January confrontation with local police who later discovered an assault rifle and loaded shotgun inside his truck.

Despite a plea by a Yolo County prosecutor for a harsher sentence, Yolo Superior Court Judge Timothy Fall declined to impose prison time or a suspended prison sentence for Nicholas Allen Benson, 25. Instead, Benson will serve three years of probation.

“Mr. Benson, you don’t want to violate probation and put yourself in a position where you’re looking at state prison time,” Fall warned the defendant during a brief sentencing hearing Thursday. He ordered Benson to surrender at the jail on Aug. 11.

Benson pleaded no contest in April to a felony charge of possession of an assault rifle and misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and carrying a loaded firearm in a public place in connection with the Jan. 21 incident in downtown Davis.

His parents testified in court that Benson, a UC Davis senior, became upset on the day of the incident after his father rejected his business proposal to grow medicinal marijuana on family property in Winters. A subsequent suicide threat prompted his parents to call police, who confronted Benson near his apartment at Fourth and A streets.

Inside Benson’s truck, authorities said, were an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle, a loaded shotgun and more than 300 rounds of ammunition.

Benson, who, according to court documents, suffered a traumatic brain injury as a teenager and has battled depression, has undergone mental health treatment since his arrest. He is scheduled to continue receiving treatment, defense attorney Steven Sabbadini said in court.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

Comments

comments