Man sentenced for courtroom attack

By Tasha Kates

Published: November 19, 2008

A Fluvanna man who attacked his accuser in a credit card case in an Albemarle County courtroom will spend 15 months in jail.

Mark Wayne Shifflett, 46, returned Tuesday to Albemarle General District Court to plead guilty to threatening a witness and assault and battery. Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. sentenced him to 12 months on each charge, but suspended parts of those sentences.

Assaults in a courtroom setting are “extremely infrequent” in the Charlottesville area, said city Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman in court. Chapman was acting as a special prosecutor for the case because county employees were present during the incident.

“The commonwealth views this as an extremely serious example of outrageous behavior,” Chapman said in court. “This is a place for decorum and respect.”

On Aug. 21, General District Judge Joseph E. Hess called Shifflett’s name for a preliminary hearing. After his attorneys and their co-defendants sat down, Shifflett made his way from the inmate holding bench in the audience to a chair next to his defense attorney, Stephanie Commander.

Shifflett, his wife and the other co-defendant were getting ready for a preliminary hearing in connection with a credit card theft. Authorities previously said that a former employer of Shifflett’s discovered someone had purchased $38,000 of cars and gift cards on his credit card.

In court Tuesday, Albemarle police Sgt. Tim Aylor testified that Shifflett approached his former employer as soon as he was nearby. Raising his handcuffed hands, Aylor said, Shifflett hit the man several times.

“You could hear it,” Aylor said about the blows, adding that Shifflett called the employer a liar and threatened to kill him.

Aylor said the victim was able to duck, which reduced the impact of the attack. It took three people to control Shifflett, who was removed from the courtroom after the incident. Albemarle Sheriff J.E. “Chip” Harding said later that he was working on some changes to courtroom security and how Shifflett would be handled in the future.

In defense of her client, Commander said Tuesday in court that Shifflett hadn’t hurt the man.

“It was an unfortunate incident, your honor, but … the victim was not injured,” Commander said in court.

Downer, who told Shifflett in court that he considered the incident “a very serious violation,” said that he would suspend six months of the sentence for the assault and battery charge because the victim was uninjured. The judge also suspended three months of the threatening a witness charge.

Shifflett is facing a variety of other charges unrelated to the Albemarle case in connection with a property crime ring. He is facing conspiracy and theft charges in Fluvanna County, as well as gun charges in federal court in Charlottesville. Shifflett has already received an eight-year active sentence for thefts in Bath County, and he faces burglary and other charges in Augusta County.

Shifflett is scheduled for a trial next year on the credit card fraud charge in Albemarle Circuit Court. He remains held at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange.