Austin attacker sentenced to 200 days in jail released two weeks later
AUSTIN, Texas - Two weeks ago, an Austin man was sentenced to 200 days in jail for a violent attack on the Congress Avenue Bridge.
Tuesday, December 31, the victims of that assault learned he had already been released.
38-year-old Timothy Mitchell appeared before a judge on December 18th. His 200-day sentence included credit for the 73 days he already spent in jail, but the victims in his case never thought he would be back on the streets so soon.
“It kind of felt like just a punch in the gut,” said Ashley Goodrich who was visiting Austin with friends when she passed Mitchell on the Congress Avenue bridge and he started punching her.
Both Goodrich and Mark Dolan, who was beaten up when he tried to protect Ashley, shared their stories in court with hopes it would lead to justice. "The anger, the hate, the hostility have mostly subsided, the physical injuries have mostly healed, except for a lingering neck injury, that will require treatment for several months to come," Dolan said from the stand.
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Mitchell accepted a plea deal that day. A judge sentenced him to 200 days in jail. Dolan and Goodrich, who suffered lasting mental and physical injuries at the hands of Mitchell, don’t think that was long enough. “He's just going to go out and do it again and I thought it was just absolutely crazy, but she said that was just the law and it was a Class A misdemeanor and there's nothing she could do about it. And I'm just like, that just doesn't seem right to me,” said Goodrich.
As if that attack and sentence didn't hurt enough, Dolan learned, just two weeks later, Mitchell had been released.
“So he's out of jail before I'm healed,” Dolan said.
“I just thought to myself, ‘All of that work and all of the time and effort that everyone put into this, and then they just let him out,’” said Goodrich.
The Travis County Sheriff's Office said Mitchell served 85 days and was released with credit for manual labor. Even though he had a lengthy criminal history, they had no choice but to let him go. Dolan hopes his story will lead to changes at the state level before someone else gets hurt.
“The legislature has to change the sentencing guidelines,” said Dolan. “What people need to know is we do in fact have violent people on our streets. I want people to know the penalties for some of these crimes are ridiculously low,” he added.
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“The system just seems very broken,” Goodrich said.
“I feel [Mitchell’s] going to have to hurt someone very badly or, God forbid, kill somebody before he'll ever do time,” she said. The day Mitchell was sentenced, Judge Brandy Mueller told FOX 7 Austin she could not mandate any kind of mental health or addiction treatment because of the charges filed.
Mitchell was found guilty for two counts of assault causing bodily injury, both misdemeanor offenses.