Ryon T. Connery, right, looks over at his defense attorney, David Arcuri during a sentencing hearing in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center in Chehalis. Connery was sentenced to 16 months on two counts of third-degree assault of a child.
The 31-year-old sex offender who pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree child assault last month for the abuse of his girlfriend’s four-year-old son will spent 16 months in prison.
Superior Court Judge Richard Brosey sentenced Ryon T. Connery Wednesday morning to a year and four months in prison, with credit for time served.
The sentence was an agreed recommendation between the prosecution and Connery’s public defender, David Arcuri.
The Winlock man was arrested last December after police say he hit and spanked his girlfriend’s child so severely that he left bruises on the boy’s legs, according to court documents. Connery also allegedly made the child do wall squats and hold a weight over his head. When the child accidently dropped the weight, it landed on his finger and fractured it.
Connery also allegedly dunked the child in a dirty pool of water and made the boy do pushups while he sprayed him with a hose, court documents state.
During Wednesday’s brief sentencing hearing, Connery declined to speak when given the opportunity to do so by the judge. The judge also ordered Wednesday morning that Connery have no contact with the four-year-old victim.
His 23-year-old girlfriend, Heather McNurlin, was charged with one count of third-degree assault of a child, a class C felony that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, in January the day after Connery pleaded guilty.
McNurlin does not have custody of her child, who now lives with his maternal grandmother, but she does have supervised visitation, Deputy Prosecutor Joely O’Rourke said previously. The Winlock woman is also attending parenting classes.
