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Bradley Morales, Minot, sentenced for murder

Bradley Joe Morales, 28, was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Sharmaine Leake, 25, during a domestic altercation in August 2017 at a Minot residence.

“I would give anything to bring her back,” Morales told Judge Doug Mattson at his sentencing hearing. He expressed remorse for the harm he has caused their three children and the rest of her family, said he thinks about Leake every day and finds it hard to sleep at night.

A jury found Morales guilty in May of the Class AA felony murder charge.

Morales had asked the judge to sentence him to 20 years in prison, to give him a chance to rehabilitate himself, while Ward County State’s Attorney Roza Larson had asked for a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Judge Mattson said he had decided against a sentence of life without parole because Morales had cooperated with law enforcement after he stabbed Leake on Aug. 16, 2017. Morales will be required to serve 85 percent of the 40 year sentence under state law.

Mattson added that a 40-year sentence will give Morales’s three children a chance to grow up without him in their lives. The children’s maternal grandmother, who is now raising the children, told the judge that she wants them to have no contact with their father until they are adults and can make their own decision about visiting him. Mattson said in court that he cannot issue a no contact order with the children while Morales is incarcerated because of a “quirk in the law.” The State Supreme Court just struck down a no contact order that Judge Gary Lee had issued preventing convicted murderer Richie Wilder Jr. from having contact with his two children until they are adults. Wilder was convicted of murdering his ex-wife, Angila Wilder, who was the mother of two of his children.

Mattson said the state prison system may have rules in place preventing inmates from having contact with victims in their cases. He also suggested that the state Legislature might want to address the matter during the next session.

Morales’s lawyer, Steven Mottinger, said Morales will appeal the sentence.

According to the state’s theory of the case, Morales had sneaked into Leake’s residence and wanted to see if she had another man in her residence. He found her on her cell phone and they argued for hours after Leake refused to give him the password to her phone. Another man called her phone and Morales answered and told the man to come over and fight him. At some point Leake ran down the stairs to get away from him and Morales pursued her, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and followed her to the patio door. The state argued that Morales stabbed Leake in the neck as she was trying to open the patio door and escape. Morales had a history of domestic violence incidents involving Leake and Larson said the murder was the result of classic, escalating domestic violence and Morales’s desire to have control over Leake.

Morales had argued at trial that he had grabbed the knife because he thought he might have to fight with the other man and that Leake was stabbed by accident as she went one way and he went another on the stairs. He said he had not intentionally stabbed her. His defense attorney argued that Morales begged for others to help Leake and tried to render medical aid and expressed remorse after the incident.

The couple’s young children were in the apartment at the time.

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