A Man from the Town of Lee Sentenced
By: Jennifer Lee
Updated: October 4, 2011
A man from the Town of Lee was sentenced in Oneida County Court today.
Judge Michael Dwyer sentenced James Newbill to 3 1/2 years behind bars.
He is guilty on four felony counts of menacing a police officer. Newbill tried to get police officers to shoot him to death back in June.
He confronted a police officer with a rifle trying to get the officer to shoot him. District Attorney Scott McNamara says some community members have sympathy for Newbill.
"He did have a lot of support and people were coming out and saying he was a good guy. I was receiving emails to tell the judge that this is out of his character. Many of the emails told me if somebody was going to do this Jim Newbill would be the last person that would do something like this," said McNamara.
Newbill has no prior record. McNamara says Newbill was intoxicated and made some poor decisions. The whole incident went down when a teenager girl, considered to be Newbill's "little sister" went missing with an older man.
McNamara says Newbill spun out of control and crashed into several cars looking for the teenager.
Newbill will be held in Elmira Correctional facility in the meantime.
