Inglewood Mayor James Butts Jr.’s 37-year-old daughter was sentenced Thursday to four years in state prison for her conviction on assault and conspiracy charges stemming from allegations that she masterminded an attack on her landlord in South Los Angeles nearly eight years ago.
Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo noted that she considered the defense’s request for probation for Ashley Melissa Butts, who had no prior criminal history. But the judge opted instead to hand down the maximum sentence requested by the prosecution, saying that she didn’t know if the woman can “learn from her mistakes.”
The judge also denied a defense request to release Butts on bail pending her appeal of the case.
Butts has been behind bars since she was convicted last July 17 of one count each of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and conspiracy to commit assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury involving the April 30, 2016, attack.
The conspiracy count alleged that Butts directed co-defendant Israel Rios to come to the residence she shared with her landlord to “commit an assault upon the victim for cash,” and then unlocked the door of the home to allow Israel Rios and/or a man identified only as John Doe to enter into the home. The conspiracy count also alleged that her landlord suffered lacerations and contusions on his head after being assaulted with a metal object and that a firearm was discharged during the crime.
Rios, 44, is awaiting trial on charges including assault.
In a brief statement before the sentence was imposed, Butts said that she “wanted to make it clear to the court that I do accept responsibility for my actions.”
“I am remorseful,” she said, adding that she was “very sorry I disrespected this court.”
The judge said Butts “manipulated” others around her, and engaged in “terrible and abusive treatment” of the courtroom’s staff, including contacting court reporters at midnight.
“You are unlike other defendants because you had the training. You knew better,” Escobedo told the defendant, who graduated from law school.
Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams called the actions taken by Butts “extremely dangerous,” telling the judge that the woman had “plotted for months.”
“This crime is a prison crime,” the prosecutor said, adding that anything less would send the wrong message to Butts.
One of Butts’ attorneys, James Blatt, asked the judge to allow him time to find a program that would be suitable for his client if she was granted probation.
The judge denied Blatt’s request to postpone the sentencing.
Outside court, he said his client will appeal her conviction.
“We were hoping for a different sentence in this matter — either a probationary sentence or a low term of two years,” Blatt said. “The court, for a multitude of reasons, sided with the prosecution for a maximum sentence of four years.”
During Butts’ trial, the prosecutor told jurors in her rebuttal argument that there was an “overwhelming amount of evidence” against the defendant.
The deputy district attorney said Butts lied to police detectives investigating the crime and to jurors when she testified in her own defense, saying that Butts was “literally making up a series of events.”
Butts allegedly had disputes with her landlord shortly after moving into his home in the 3300 block of West 78th Street, near Crenshaw Boulevard, and arranged for a ridehailing driver to take two men to the residence to assault the victim, the District Attorney’s Office said shortly after the case was filed against her in June 2016.
In his closing argument, one of Butts’ attorneys, Joseph Weimortz, questioned how Butts would benefit from the attack.
“How is that revenge?” he asked jurors. “What does Ashley gain by an anonymous attack? … Nothing.”
The defense attorney told the panel that his client immediately called 911 to seek assistance for her landlord, and disputed that she had been a “tenant from hell.”
The jury was the second to hear the case against Butts, with the first jury deadlocking in March 2022.
Butts had previously pleaded guilty in 2019 to assault and conspiracy charges in a plea deal that was expected to result in a one-year county jail term and a suspended four-year state prison term, but she was subsequently allowed to withdraw her plea and proceed to trial.