Judge balances men's fates after brutal assault

A Yukon judge will take another week to decide what to do about a grisly attack at a home in downtown Whitehorse last summer.

Two men have pleaded guilty to the bloody assault that saw a man have a finger hacked off with a butcher knife.

Last June 39-year-old Danny Jordan and 19-year-old Michael Nehass stormed into a downtown Whitehorse home to teach Fred "Mad Dog" Martin a lesson in debt repayment.

They beat the man, a cocaine dealer, with a baseball bat.

Then while he cried for mercy, they used a meat cleaver to cut off his little finger. They threatened to cut off his whole hand.

The attackers were soon arrested. Doctors worked for eight hours to re-attach Martin's finger, but were only partially successful.

Prosecutors want both men sent to penitentiary, proposing a five-year term for Jordan, less for Nehass.

Defence lawyers say that's excessive.

They cited lesser sentences handed out recently in cases where victims were beaten senseless and left for dead. A man who stabbed his partner several times only received three years, they pointed out.

Jordan and Nehass both have lengthy criminal records.

Authorities say Jordan is intelligent, personable and a model prisoner.

Jordan told the judge he just got out of jail and was trying to turn his life around. He said he only wanted to scare the drug dealer and was sorry that the women in the house at the time of the assault had to witness the scene.

Nehass, who was high on coke and heroine at the time, told the judge drugs made him do it.

Since he left Dease Lake he's run up a string of violent convictions.

Still Nehass says he's not the monster authorities have made him out to be, and penitentiary time will just make things worse.

Judge John Faulkner will sentence the men next week.