Hayes said he didn’t remember what happened the night in April 2018 when April Brown, of Alpena, died after taking the fentanyl-laced heroin he gave her and another woman.

Judge Benjamin Bolser of Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court sentenced Hayes to 10 to 60 years in prison for providing the drugs that led to Brown’s death.

Hayes was arrested in January after an extensive investigation into Brown’s death by the Michigan State Police-Alpena Post. He was also charged with tampering with evidence for hiding drug paraphernalia after calling 911 when Brown appeared to have overdosed.

Hayes also said he couldn’t remember selling crystal meth to an undercover informant in the parking lots of several local businesses. A separate 10-year sentence for the drug sales will be served concurrently.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Justin Golder, accused of armed home invasion, appears virtually in court on Monday before Judge Ed Black.

In January 2018, Hayes and another man called police to a residence in Maple Ridge Township, pleading for their help with an unresponsive woman. Police found nobody else in the home and determined the men were under the influence of drugs and hallucinating. He was later charged with possession of cocaine.

***

One member of a group accused of invading an Alpena home wearing bandanas and armed with handguns, a survival-style knife, and a baseball bat made a brief court appearance Monday.

Justin Golder, of Bay City, was arrested in April after allegedly holding a home’s occupants at gunpoint on April 10, demanding drugs.

Attorney Jason Ball, of Bay City, said in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court on Monday he needs to meet with his incarcerated client in person before continuing in court. In-person visits have been prohibited at the Alpena County Jail since the coronavirus hit Michigan in mid-March,

Attorneys have connected with their clients via videoconferencing software Zoom.

A status conference was set for July 20.

Police reports indicate five assailants entered the home through the unlocked front door and stormed into an upstairs bedroom, where several people were gathered.

A victim identified Golder as the assailant wearing a clown mask with fake red hair and holding a gun with a laser light attached. Golder had been at the house recently and knew where marijuana was kept, according to police reports.

In 2011, Golder pleaded no-contest to a home invasion charge while on parole for larceny in a building and served six years in prison.

***

In Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court on Monday, a judge gave a year of jail time to defendant William Walsh, an Alpena man who can’t read or write and is operating at a fourth-grade level, according to his guardian.

Walsh, 25, was arrested in October after trying to force unwanted sexual contact on a woman, making lewd gestures toward another, and verbally assaulting several people, urged to do so by several other men.

Other people — including other inmates at the Alpena County Jail, where Walsh has been incarcerated for more than 240 days — take advantage of his mental illness, including egging him on to the “joke” in the current case, defense attorney Mike Lamble said.

“I don’t see where there was any joke going on here at all,” countered Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski, noting that Walsh used marijuana before the incident and aggressively confronted several people in a public space.

Walsh was under the supervision of Northeast Michigan Community Mental Health at the time, participating in an in-patient program which allowed him to go to a job during the day.

Walsh’s guardian said he is looking for the court’s direction in what kind of placement to try next for his client.

“I think he should be looking for direction from somebody other than the court,” Bolser said.

Noting concessions from both the guardian and the defense attorney that Walsh does know right from wrong, Bolser sentenced him to 12 months in jail, with credit for 240 days served.

***

Cycles of drug use and bad decisions keep bringing the same people into court, the prosecution, defense, and judge agreed in Monday’s 26th Circuit Court virtual courtroom.

During the sentencing for Jacob McBride, who admitted to threatening a home with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle after taking multiple hits of the hallucinogen LSD, defense attorney Mike Lamble said he sees the same names in Alpena police reports over and over, most of them tied to drug-fueled crimes.

Bolser sentenced McBride to 10 months in jail and two years of probation.

The threatening behavior with the rifle — for which McBride’s co-defendant, Travis Worth, was sentenced to 11 months in jail — is a more serious offense than is usually seen in Alpena, Muszynski said.

She urged the judge to consider a strict sentence as a deterrent for both repeat offenders and the next generation.

McBride’s child will have to grow up without him for a time while McBride does time in jail, Muszynski said, but the defendant has time to break the cycle that brings offenders repeatedly into Alpena courts by being a better example as a father.

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