Violating probation while impaired from drugs wasn’t a good enough excuse to keep a Colusa man with a history of violence from going to state prison.
Phillip C. Savala, 34, was sentenced on Feb. 7, to four years in state prison after admitting he pulled a knife on a man who was chasing him out of his yard as Savala tried to flee the police.
Savala pleaded no contest to the single felony of assault with a deadly weapon in a plea deal that dismissed three other charges, including trespass and criminal threats.
Savala has a lengthy criminal history in Colusa County, including domestic violence, and has a history of repeated parole and probation violations, which Judge Jeffrey A. Thompson said made him ineligible for probation again, despite a plea from Savala’s attorney to allow his client to go to drug rehabilitation.
At the time of his arrest last August, Savala was on probation for possession of a controlled substance in 2020 and disobeying a court order in 2021.
In 2012, Savala was sentenced to five years in state prison for assaulting a peace officer, following a high-speed pursuit with the California Highway Patrol, in which Savala reportedly rammed into two police cruisers in an attempt to avoid being arrested on a felony warrant connected to a claim that he choked his wife in a fit of anger.
Thompson also sentenced Savala to 30 days for violating probation, which will run concurrent with his prison sentence. He will be given a total of 369 days credit off his sentence for the 185 days he has served and 184 days “half-time” credits earned, which his attorney Geoffrey Wander said his client would waive if given another chance to redeem himself from a “lifetime of poor decisions.”
Savala will be on parole for three years after his release from prison, Thompson said. ■