Man sentenced to four years after slashing guest at Trent Shelter

A Spokane County Superior Court judge sentenced a man to four years in jail after he slashed another man in the face with a box cutter at the Trent Resource and Assistance Shelter in February.

A jury found 50-year-old Michael J. Kegley guilty of second-degree assault in an April trial.

According to court documents, a 27-year-old Black man a few beds away from Kegley overheard him making racist remarks about Jews and Black people while they were both guests at the city-funded homeless shelter at about 12:45 a.m. The man told Kegley to stop, but Kegley responded with a threat instead.

Kegley got into the other man’s face before kissing him on the lips, documents said. The man pushed Kegley away, but Kegley then produced a box cutter and lunged at the man’s face, cutting him.

The victim had a significant laceration about 2-3 inches across his face that required stitches, documents said.

Kegley has more than two dozen felony and misdemeanor convictions in Spokane County dating back to his childhood, almost half of which are for assault.

In his felony judgment and sentencing documents, Kegley signed his name with a note “under protest” written beneath his signature.

In addition to his prison sentence, Kegley is also ordered to serve 12 months in community custody and is prohibited from contacting the victim.