Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- A three-judge panel on Friday rejected a prison escapee's hope for a reduced sentence.

James Sugar was convicted, along with another inmate, on Aug. 15, 2007, for leaving Palmer Correctional Center to go on a tobacco run.

The presumptive sentence for escape is 6 to 10 years. Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler could have reduced the sentence minimum by half, but she was reluctant to give Sugar three years because she said at the time he willingly gave himself up while his partner, Eugene Bourdon, 31, ran and was eventually arrested at gunpoint.

As a result, Cutler referred the sentence to the three-judge panel, which could reduce the sentence even more.

At the time, she called the three-year sentence for Sugar "out of proportion to the crime."

But judges Mark Wood, Michael Thompson and John Suddock said Friday there was no evidence of manifest injustice to the sentencing in the case. They referred it back to Cutler.

Bourdon, a two-time sex offender, got the minimum six years, but Cutler then suspended three. Bourdon will also be on probation for five years.

Sugar, who has six property crime felonies on his record, and Bourdon were in the prison's minimum-security section, which has no fence. On March 31, 2007, they left the prison grounds to hunt for a cache of cigarettes left by an accomplice in the woods outside prison grounds.

Their time outside confinement was brief. At trial, assistant district attorney Mike Walsh said the escape lasted from 6:25 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Bourdon was the first to be caught. Troopers found him along the Glenn Highway. When spotted a few miles from the prison, Bourdon jumped a guardrail and ran.

Sugar was also spotted not far from the prison and was grabbed by a prison official.

When caught, both had less than a year left to serve on their original sentences: Sugar had 38 days left to serve and Bourdon about 200 days.

Find T.C. Mitchell online at adn.com/contact/tcmitchell or call 1-907-352-6716.

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