By John S. Hausman | Muskegon Chronicle
October 24, 2009, 10:07PM
On July 10, 2008, Robert Lee Shine was paroled from prison.
He had served exactly three years, the bare minimum of two concurrent sentences: three to 30 years for receiving and concealing stolen property, three to five years for attempted breaking and entering a building. With Shine having a history of mental-health problems, his parole conditions included a requirement that he participate in a treatment program approved by his parole officer.
Shine’s record after release was checkered. In November 2008 he was arrested for retail fraud; he was released Nov. 20 to a “treatment facility.” On March 12, state police arrested him for being a parole absconder. He was lodged in the Muskegon County Jail until April 21 and released to a parole agent.
Then, early on the morning of April 28, police say he called 911 asking to be transported to Community Mental Health because he was “off his meds.” He next rode his bicycle to the Muskegon Heights Police Department around 3 a.m. and told an officer he had “hit” and “choked” the girlfriend he lived with, Dianne Joy Preston-Aguilar, and “she won’t wake up,” police said.
When officers arrived at the home, the 47-year-old woman was dead.
Shine, 50, is scheduled for trial Jan. 5 on a charge of open murder. He’s charged as a fourth-time habitual felon.
Shine is one of several parolees who recently have been charged or convicted of newsworthy crimes in Muskegon County, some within months after their release, some after serving only their minimum court-ordered sentences. The crimes include two out of five of the county’s homicides in 2009 to date.
Some law-enforcement officials say Michigan Department of Corrections policy changes to speed up paroles and return fewer parole violators to prison are endangering the public. Corrections officials say Michigan’s improved crime statistics in recent years, since the prison population began shrinking, are more persuasive than anecdotes about individual crimes by parolees.
Here are some other recent examples in the news of Muskegon parolees charged or convicted of crimes, either violent or repetitive:
Derrick L. Hewlett
• Derrick Lynell Hewlett — paroled June 10, 2008, after serving 20 months of a 20-month-to-20-year sentence for delivery of less than 50 grams of a controlled substance.
Hewlett, 20, of Holland now is charged with open murder as an alleged accomplice in the June 20, 2009, shooting death of Willie C. Rice in Rice’s Muskegon home.
Hewlett is accused of “casing out” the home by entering it a few minutes before two other men entered the house to rob Rice and several friends at gunpoint. Darius Tyrone Huntington is on trial for allegedly shooting Rice. Hewlett’s trial is scheduled for Dec. 1.
Jack D. Hendricks
• Jack Darnell Hendricks — paroled June 3, 2009, after serving the minimum 2 1/2 years of a sentence for stealing a laptop computer from Mona Shores’ Campbell Elementary School in September 2006. That theft happened a month after Hendricks was paroled after serving 18 months for stealing a computer from Mona Shores’ Churchill School in November 2004.
On July 8, 2009 —five weeks after his latest parole — Hendricks, 45, of Muskegon allegedly did it yet again. Police say he walked into Orchard View High School and stole a laptop. Within days he was arrested at North Muskegon High School, where he was found wandering during a school board meeting, and charged with possessing marijuana on school property.
Ryan M. Brown
He also was charged with second-degree home invasion for allegedly breaking into a Norton Shores garage to steal a girl’s bicycle that he rode around the neighborhood, reportedly peering into windows of homes and a church. He is facing trial in all three cases.
• Ryan McCovy Brown — paroled Nov. 13, 2008, after serving slightly more than the minimum of a 26-month-to-15-year sentence for larceny in a building. He also remains on parole for five felony convictions for home invasions committed in 1999.
Lashaun C. Johnson
On May 22, about six months after his release, Brown allegedly broke into an Egelston Township home. The homeowner interrupted the burglary, punched the suspect and got his belongings back. Brown, 32, of Muskegon is scheduled for trial this week on charges of first-degree home invasion and three gun counts.
• Laushaun Christopher Johnson — paroled Aug. 24, 2006, after serving 10 months for violating probation on a 2001 conviction of breaking and entering a building with intent to steal. He is on parole until Feb. 24, 2010.
Thomas S. Crews
Robert L. Beane Jr.
Charles D. Holmes
Johnson, 27, of Muskegon Heights now is charged with unarmed robbery for allegedly walking into Sang Sportswear Sept. 28 and stealing valuable merchandise while the owner was struggling on the floor with a robber he had disarmed.
• Thomas Scott Crews — paroled in March 2007 after serving the 16-month minimum sentence for larceny of between $1,000 and $20,000 and breaking and entering involving a coin telephone.
On April 26, 2009, Crews, 39, of Muskegon broke into a building and on May 7 he tried to steal tools from a truck in the parking lot of Lowe’s, then fought with the owner when he showed up. Crews was arrested, later pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery and breaking and entering a building and is now serving four to 20 years for the robbery and 20 months to 15 years for the break-in.
• Robert Leon Beane Jr. and — Beane, 50, was paroled Oct. 22, 2008, after serving prison time for unlawful use of a motor vehicle and second-degree home invasion.
Beane now is charged with the May 27 robbery of the Fifth Third Bank of Seminole Road in Norton Shores.
• Charles Dorian Holmes — Holmes, 32, was paroled on Jan. 21, 2009, after sentences for armed robbery and jail escape.
Holmes also is charged, with Beane, in the May 27 robbery of the Fifth Third Bank of Seminole Road in Norton Shores.
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