A Tucson man sentenced to prison in 2017 after being arrested for drawing a gun on another man during a financial dispute involving prostitution at a Sierra Vista hotel is headed back to the Arizona Department of Corrections after violating his post-prison probation.
Wesley Paul Kirk was released from prison in July 2020 after serving time for aggravated robbery of a man who solicited two women for sex in January 2017. The women reportedly worked for Kirk, now 36.
Once out of prison, Kirk began a four-year term of intensive supervised probation for possessing a semi-automatic pistol during the same prostitution case despite the fact he was a prohibited possessor. Court records show Kirk absconded from probation just three months later.
A petition to revoke probation filed with the Cochise County Superior Court alleged five violations, which was enough for a judge to issue a statewide warrant for Kirk’s arrest. On Dec. 21, 2020, the Tucson Police Department booked Kirk into the Pima County jail on the outstanding Cochise County warrant and for soliciting the possession of heroin for sale.
In April, Kirk was sentenced by a Pima County judge to 1.5 years in state prison on the heroin charge. Then on July 19 he stood before Judge Laura Cardinal of the Cochise County Superior Court and admitted violating probation by committing the drug offense in Pima County.
A new plea deal in the 2017 case called for Kirk to be sentenced to 2.5 years in prison on the weapons charge, but sentencing was delayed a few weeks while the Cochise County Attorney’s Office and Kirk’s defense attorney Ashlea Allred wrangled with the county’s Adult Probation Office over how many days of jail credit Kirk was due.
On Aug. 2, Cardinal imposed the agreed upon sentence and gave Kirk credit for 224 days of time served toward the sentence. She also ordered Kirk’s prison sentence in the Cochise County case will be served concurrently, at the same time, as the Pima County sentence.