A young man from Georgia who was facing decades of imprisonment on an attempted premeditated murder charge has been sentenced by a Cochise County judge to only five years in prison after the prosecutor agreed that extenuating circumstances supported an aggravated assault conviction instead.
Adam James Desmelik was sentenced Aug. 25 as part of a plea deal accepted by Judge Jason Lindstrom over the objection of Reginald James Mack, whom Desmelik shot three times on May 19, 2019.
Mack, who was in the shower of his St. David home at the time of the shooting, stumbled to a neighbor’s house for help. Public records show he was airlifted to a Tucson area trauma hospital with gunshot wounds to the abdomen, shoulder, and pelvis.
One experienced law enforcement officer described the scene as “incredibly bloody.” Mack was released from the hospital several days later.
Desmelik, who had been residing with Mack, left the scene in Mack’s vehicle only to be arrested the same day at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in New Mexico. He was returned to Arizona by the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) on an arrest warrant and $1 million bail.
A county grand jury indicted Desmelik, then 20, on attempted first degree premeditated murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and theft of means of transportation.
There was never any doubt that Desmelik shot Mack, using a pillow to try to muffle the sound. There were, however, questions about how Desmelik came to be living in St. David and about the nature of his relationship with Mack.
There were also questions of whether Desmelik acted under duress.
The official CCSO incident report notes detectives found a contract at the scene of the shooting. It outlined “rules which dictated the relationship” between the two men, including sexual activity, according to the report.
Investigators also learned Desmelik had become estranged from his family in Georgia in 2021 after spending his first year at college under quarantine. He ended up homeless in Benson but did not contact his family even after accepting an offer to live with Mack.
Court documents show various relatives even traveled to Arizona and California, searching “soup kitchens and homeless shelters” in an effort to find the young man.
Desmelik’s mother wrote to Lindstrom with a plea of mercy, calling the shooting “a last act of desperation” undertaken by her son “in an attempt to free himself from the nightmare that his life had become.”
A settlement conference held last month resulted in Deputy County Attorney Terisha Driggs offering a plea agreement that dismissed the attempted premeditated murder charge. It also guaranteed Desmelik would serve only five years in prison for aggravated assault.
The plea deal also called for Desmelik to serve 3.5 years for auto theft, with another provision of the agreement requiring the judge to order the two sentences to be served concurrently, or the same time.
Desmelik will be eligible for early release from prison after serving 85 percent. He was also credited by Lindstrom with 463 days spent in jail awaiting resolution of the case.