A Menominee man was sentenced this week to 3½ years in prison in connection with breaking his girlfriend’s nose with a punch to her face.
Last February, Darryl D. Smith, 53, was staying at the Eagle’s Nest, an emergency shelter operated by the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, with Candace Escalante with whom he shared a child, according to court documents.
While in bed, Escalante received a phone message which caused an argument. Smith spoke to Escalante and she cursed him, swatting him backhanded. Smith punched Escalante in the face and then grabbed her hair and yanked it hard.
Smith grabbed a shirt to hold to Escalante’s bleeding nose. He offered to drive to the hospital, but she refused, called 911 and her mother.
At the Shawano hospital, Menominee Tribal Police Department met with Escalante, who had visible bruising on the bridge of her nose, forehead, and below her left eye.
A doctor observed that Escalante’s nose was substantially but temporarily displaced.
In a memo to the court, Smith’s attorney, Krista Hall-Valdes, wrote that the couple had a dysfunctional relationship marked by a lack of steady employment, “housing instability” and substance abuse.
The couple had fought before, but days prior to the assault, Smith became upset after learning Escalante wanted her sister to care for the couple’s infant daughter as Escalante was caring for her two other children.
Smith was raised by parents who drank, and when he was a teenager, his father used marijuana with him. Smith’s drug use progressed to cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl.
Smith’s prior convictions were connected to substance abuse and in the eight months he’s been in jail, has become sober and committed to remaining so, Halla-Valdes wrote.
After prison, Smith wants to remain in his daughter’s life but not in a relationship with Escalante.
Smith has been an active member in the Pipe and Drum group, an organization for Native Americans to practice their religion and hopes to live either in Shawano or Green Bay after completing training for welding or computer machining and becoming employed.
Halla-Valdes asked U.S. District Judge William Griesbach for a four-year prison sentence. Smith is currently in state custody, and the judge imposed 40 months to run concurrent with any state sentences he is serving. Smith was also placed on three years’ supervised release following completion of his sentence.
