News Photo by Julie Riddle Alpena resident Carl Standen, sentenced Thursday to a year in jail for selling controlled substances and intimidating a witness, appears from the Alpena County Jail in a virtual courtroom as his attorney argues on his behalf.

ALPENA — An Alpena man who threatened a woman he believed ratted him out to police was sentenced to a year in jail for a crime that could have led to 10 years in prison, a judge determined Thursday.

In a videoconferenced hearing day, broadcast to the public via a court YouTube channel, Carl Standen was sentenced for selling Xanax and an imitation LSD-like substance and intimidating a witness.

The regular hearing day in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court was postponed from Monday, when the court was not ready to proceed using the Zoom software provided to Michigan courts as an alternative to holding in-person hearings during the coronavirus stay-at-home order. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday extended that order through the end of April.

“The people who mess with me and my family, they’re dead,” Standen told a confidential informant via text messages and phone calls, according to Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski.

Witness intimidation charges can result in a penalty of 10 years’ incarceration.

Standen pleaded guilty to the charges in January, part of a plea agreement in which charges of maintaining a drug house and child endangerment were dropped.

Seven children, including an 8-month-old infant, were in his home when he was arrested in September after a four-month investigation by the Huron Undercover Narcotics Team.

Defense attorney Denise Burke, arguing that Standen’s sentencing guidelines were scored incorrectly, was unintelligible for large portions of her argument as her audio connection faded in and out.

Details of the guidelines wouldn’t make a difference in Standen’s ultimate sentence, Judge Benjamin Bolser told Burke. However, a potential appeal could hinge on the words entered into the official record, Burke explained. The fact that some of her words were hard to hear illustrate a potential complication of the incorporation of new technology into courtrooms.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.