ANTIGO — Friday morning, a local man was sentenced to roughly four and a half months in the Langlade County Jail and three years of probation after he pleaded no contest to several felonies including recklessly endangering safety, hit and run to cause injury, and substantial battery intending to cause bodily harm.
Matthew Nance, 31, has already served at least half of the sentence while awaiting court appearances. Court officials stated that because of credit he may receive for good behavior, his sentence may be further reduced.
The plea was agreed to by District Attorney Kelly Hays and mostly adopted by Judge John Rhode, both of whom nevertheless dwelt on the number of simultaneous cases Nance faced in statements they made during the hearing.
“It is unusual, though certainly not unheard of, to have so many criminal cases open in this county at one time,” Hays said. “We’re talking about four different misdemeanor files and three different felonies at this point. That is a concerning number of files. It certainly shows that the state, the court, needs to interfere with Mr. Nance…and that some reduction of liberty is appropriate at this point in time. We’re certainly not looking at a fine resolution when we have this many cases or charges. However, given the lack of prior record, I do believe that the combination of probation and jail time that the parties are recommending for the most part jointly today is appropriate.”
According to the criminal complaint as well as description of the event Friday in court, the battery charge was leveled against Nance just over two weeks ago on April 27 after he walked up to a man’s car in the Taco Bell parking lot around midnight and punched him in the face several times, breaking his nose. The man said he had never met Nance before, but believed Nance had attacked him because he was jealous of his relationship with the woman he was there to pick up.
The recklessly endangering safety and hit and run charges stem from an evening in late Oct. 2022, when witnesses said Nance was circling the house of a woman he was upset would not date him. The woman and another witness got into a truck and were driving down 3rd Ave. when Nance rear-ended them with his truck. They got out and approached his vehicle and found him pointing a pistol at his own head and making suicidal comments. He then sped off, hitting the girl with his truck in the process. He was arrested the next day.
Nance is believed to have been intoxicated during both incidents, which his attorney Jon Padgham suggested was the largest factor driving his past crimes.
“At its core, it’s alcohol and then meth spinning out of control and all of the garbage that followed with that. Is the alcohol under control? Is the meth under control? He’s going to be OK. There wasn’t stuff before this. If he gets it under control, he’s a hard-working guy,” Padgham said. “His head is in the right place. Probation is appropriate. Decades hang over his head if he messes up.”
Rhode said the consequences for Nance if he were to violate his probation conditions, which include maintaining absolute sobriety and undergoing domestic violence and mental health assessments, could be substantial.
“The most serious one is the recklessly endangering safety and your attorney correctly wrote…it’s ten years in prison,” Rhode said. “The maximum is five years up front, plus five additional years of extended supervision which, if you screw up during that, would be another five years. There’s ten years there alone, plus any others that you’d be on probation on that you get revoked on or anywhere from additional county jail time to additional prison time. That can have a good purpose: to motivate you to succeed.”
Before requesting no additional jail time other than what he had already served, Nance vowed to cease blaming others for his problems.
“Today I stand before you at a point of revelation in which no denial or external allegation of blame is to be found,” Nance said. “By this revelation, I stand acknowledging my wrong and accepting in my faults and taking accountability for my actions. To the victims of my misdeeds, I ask for forgiveness with only my sincere apology, acknowledgement of wrong, and promise to do and be better.”
Rhode issued Nance a warning sometime after his request.
“You present well,” Rhode said. “You say the right things. If you’re not blowing smoke at me, you’ll be good. If you’re blowing smoke at me, I’m not really the one that’s going to suffer: you are. You’re going to get caught again, and you’re going to have bigger problems.”
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