WESTFIELD – A city man who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a home invasion on Thomas Street last May has been sentenced to several terms in state prison.
Jason D. Hannum, 26, of 59 King St., was arrested May 18, 2014, after a General Shepard Apartments resident called police at 3:16 a.m. to report that she had awakened to find a man holding a knife from her kitchen standing over her sleeping husband.
The woman’s screams awakened her husband who grabbed for the knife and the couple fought off the intruder who fled after yelling threats to kill both of the residents, police reported. The male resident suffered a cut to his hand in the struggle.
Police converged on the area in search of the suspect and Officer Efrain Luna, who had been in the area investigating an unrelated break-in, apparently surprised the fleeing intruder when he drove the wrong way on one-way Chapel Street and spotted the man dressed in black.
Hannum fled through Monroe Street backyards until he was apprehended by Luna and Officer Jared Rowe who had also responded to the call.
Hannum was not found to be in possession of a knife but the knife the residents said he had been holding was found in their apartment.
Both victims separately identified Hannum as their assailant. Police found that the intruder had made entry to the apartment via a laundry room window
Arraigned in Westfield District Court before Judge Philip A. Contant on charges of armed assault during a burglary, breaking and entering in the nighttime with intent to commit a felony, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon and two charges of threatening to commit a crime, Hannum was initially held without right to bail.
Contant noted when he ordered Hannum’s pre-trial detention that neither victim had ever seen Hannum before he appeared in their bedroom. He wrote “The victims literally had to fight for their lives in this 3:00 AM attack in their own bedroom.”
In July, the charges in district court were dismissed after Hannum was indicted and arraigned in Hampden Superior Court where judges may mete out much stiffer penalties that those available to judges in district courts.
On Tuesday, Hannum appeared before Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder where he pleaded guilty to five of the six charges he was originally arraigned on and was sentenced to state prison.
The armed assault during a burglary charge was not prosecuted but he was sentenced to eight to ten year terms in state prison on both the assault and battery charge and the charge of breaking and entering in the nighttime with intent to commit a felony.
He was sentenced to a term of five years to five years and a day on the charge of assault with a dangerous weapon (a knife) and to six month terms for each of two charges of threatening to commit a crime.
All the sentences were ordered to be served concurrently and he was allowed credit for 235 days served awaiting trial.
