A judge sentenced a 40-year-old man to four years, nine months in prison for a 2021 drive-by shooting in Kent and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Kent Wayne Perdue received the sentence Dec. 5 from King County Superior Court Judge Mark A. Larranaga at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. Perdue fired shots at a man and a woman in their car on the East Hill after he didn’t receive payment for a drug deal, according to charging papers.
Prosecutors originally charged Perdue with second-degree assault but lowered it to drive-by shooting after Perdue pleaded guilty in July. The unlawful possession of a firearm charge remained due to previous felony convictions.
Prosecutors asked for the high-end of the sentencing range, 75 months (six years, three months) for Perdue, according to Casey McNerthney, spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The defense recommended a low-end sentence of 57 months (four years, nine months).
Prior to the sentencing, a defense attorney presented the judge with a report from a mitigation specialist as part of the request for a lower sentence. The report detailed mental health and substance use issues, his first prison sentence at age 20 and the impact of a significant traumatic brain injury Perdue suffered in a 2011 car crash when he was 25.
The report described how Perdue over the past few years, since his release on bond from jail (bail was set at $750,000), has worked as a handyman, focused on sobriety and staying out of trouble while living with his mother and sister. He will receive credit for time served in jail.
“Mr. Kent Perdue is a quiet, solitary 40-year-old man who has survived childhood trauma and instability, untreated mental health and substance use issues, personal loss, and a devastating traumatic brain injury,” according to the report. “These past chapters of Kent’s life have impacted the choices he made that led to his involvement in the criminal legal system but have also shaped the person he has become and hopes to become in the future. At this stage of his life, he has finally found the things that ground him: his family, his sobriety, removing himself from prior negative influences, and hopes for a career in the future.”
Perdue had been scheduled to be sentenced in September, but the sentencing was changed several times due to a medical condition and ongoing medical care, according to court documents.
The case
At about 6 a.m. on Oct. 6, 2021, officers responded to a 911 call about a drive-by shooting on Southeast 256th Street just east of 116th Avenue Southeast, according to court documents. The caller said she was in a red Volkswagen Beetle and the suspect was following behind them in a blue Dodge sedan.
Officers located the Beetle near downtown. The occupants were not injured but officers found a bullet hole in the driver side rear quarter panel. Officers found a bullet inside a backpack and items inside apparently stopped the bullet from hitting the woman in her rib cage while she was in the back seat.
The driver knew the shooter and told police he first shot at them while parked at a house in the 27800 block of 129th Place in Kent. He said he owed the man about $600 for fentanyl pills he bought a week prior.
As he sat in his car outside the house, Perdue reportedly came out of his friend’s house and yelled that the man owed him money. He then fired one round toward the vehicle. He drove away and Perdue reportedly followed him and fired more shots.
On Oct. 20, 2021, after reviewing cellphone records that reportedly put Perdue in the area of the shooting, Kent detectives and Valley SWAT served a search warrant on Perdue’s apartment in Des Moines. Police took him into custody and found him with $2,770 dollars in cash and an iPhone that matched the cellphone number they had used to track his locations during the shooting.
Perdue told detectives that he didn’t shoot at anybody the day of the incident and that he had no drugs or guns in his apartment. But detectives found four pistols, fentanyl pills, meth, cocaine and heroin inside the apartment, according to charging documents. One of the guns was reported stolen out of Enumclaw.
Perdue is a five-time convicted felon with two prior convictions for first-degree armed robbery, according to charging papers.
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