Man sentenced to prison for failing to show up at halfway house

A homeless Lee County man who detoured in January from his unescorted route to a local halfway house learned Tuesday he’ll spend more than three additional years behind bars.

John Howard Jr., 48, had two more months left on a federal drug sentence before he failed to show up Jan. 5 at the Salvation Army Red Shield Lodge in Fort Myers. He later was found sleeping in a van in the Dunbar neighborhood of Fort Myers, and on Tuesday was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison on an escape charge.

Howard could have been sentenced to between 37 months and 46 months based on his criminal history and new classification as a career offender.

Howard’s attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Russell Rosenthal, argued that Howard’s escape wasn’t violent, and that he had finished the prison portion of his earlier drug sentence when he simply didn’t show up at the halfway house for residential drug treatment. Rosenthal said Howard shouldn’t receive such as stiff sentence.

“Mr. Rosenthal, your client’s problem is he took a relatively minor case and snowballed,” U.S. District Judge John E. Steele said before passing sentence. “He has a horrendous criminal history. That history includes a prior escape. There are not many good things about Mr. Howard’s criminal history.”

Howard pleaded guilty in March in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers to the escape charge, filed after Howard took a cab from prison to a Central Florida bus depot, the bus back to Fort Myers, but then didn’t take another cab to the halfway house, located at 2400 Edison Ave. Officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons had arranged Howard to take the cab from Coleman-Low — the minimum-security prison in Central Florida where Howard was housed — to the bus depot, the bus to Fort Myers, then another cab to the Red Shield Lodge.

“I kept telling them I didn’t want to go to the halfway house,” Howard said during his March plea hearing. “I just decided not to go to the halfway house and I went home.”

A tip to Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers led U.S. Marshals to Howard after he didn’t make the last leg of the almost 200-mile unescorted trip. He said he didn’t want to comment Tuesday.

Steele also recommended Howard participate in the Bureau of Prisons’ 500-hour drug treatment program.

“No decision has been made about whether to appeal,” Rosenthal said after the sentencing hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jesus Casas said he agreed that Howard should have been penalized on this low end of the sentencing guidelines.

Steele ruled that the new three-year and one-month sentence must be served consecutively with Howard’s remaining prison time on the drug case. Rosenthal said Howard may lose his gain time, and have to serve that, too. But, Rosenthal added that prison officials may add on about six months of this unserved drug term.

Howard was sentenced by Steele to 27 months in prison Feb. 7, 2005, on charges of conspiracy to possess crack cocaine with intent to distribute and distribution of crack cocaine. He was sent in the cab almost 11 months into this term.

Howard received that sentence for selling two crack rocks to agents during an undercover drug sting.