A Bell County district court judge sentenced a local man this week to prison time after the man pleaded guilty to stalking and violating a term of probation on a previous felony charge.
On Wednesday, in the 27th Judicial District Court, Pedro Kluting Jr., 35 — a former Killeen resident who know shows a Belton address, according to jail records — pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison, according to First Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Newell.
Previously, on Aug. 25, 2020, in the same court, Judge John Gauntt sentenced Kluting to a term of five years of deferred adjudication probation on a third-degree felony charge of violating a protective order twice within a year. At the request of the victim and approved by the state’s prosecutor, Gauntt removed the no-contact provision from the terms of Kluting’s probation but the judge warned Kluting to abide by the terms.
“Should I find that you have violated any terms of your probation, the full range of punishment will be available to me,” Gauntt said during the sentencing hearing on Aug. 25, 2020.
Just over a month later, on Oct. 1, 2020, police said that Kluting began stalking the same woman and that his harassing and threatening behavior persisted until Jan. 25, 2021, according to a law enforcement agency in Bell County.
Police said that on Oct. 1, 2020, he went to the victim’s place of employment, yelled at her and pushed her.
Jail records show that Kluting was booked into the Bell County Jail on Jan. 28, 2021. Since then, he has been held in lieu of bonds totaling $127,500.
After being arrested in February of 2020, on a Class A misdemeanor charge of assault of a family member with bodily injury, a judge on March 16, 2020, signed an emergency protective order, according to Bell County court records.
The judge ordered that Kluting was not allowed within 1,000 feet of the home of the victim, but he violated that court order twice within a week.
“Kluting went to the house multiple times and tried repeatedly to get into the house starting on Feb. 27, 2020, (and) continuing until he was arrested on March 5, 2020, when he was found hiding in the shed in the backyard of the protected residence,” according to the arrest affidavit.
Police said that the assault victim called 911 and told the dispatcher “to hurry before he killed her and the children.”
Two reports were taken prior to Kluting’s arrest on March 5, 2020, including one taken the day before when he attempted to break into the home through the back door and broke a kitchen window before leaving the scene, according to the affidavit.
Kluting was not finished breaking windows.
According to an indictment handed down by a grand jury on March 17, 2021, Kluting broke the window of a stranger on Oct. 13, 2020, at a location where he thought the victim would be. A few days later, on Oct. 16, 2020, he damaged another window at a prior residence of the victim. On Jan. 19, 2021, he broke a window at the victim’s current residence.
Police said that he went to the woman’s residence on Jan. 13 and Jan. 22, 2021, to harass her, according to the indictment.
Killeen man sentenced for armed robbery
In an unrelated case that also was heard on Wednesday in the same court, Kevyn Jamon Sudduth, 18, was sentenced to eight years of deferred adjudication probation for his part in an armed robbery in Killeen last year.
Sudduth already had pleaded guilty on Nov. 9, 2021 to aggravated robbery, which is a first-degree felony.
On Feb. 8, 2021, KPD officers were dispatched to the 5800 block of Sulfur Spring Drive, where a victim said that Sudduth and another man had robbed him at gunpoint. Both suspects fled and later were found after a search, according to the arrest affidavit.
Police located a handgun and a backpack containing ammunition, suspected marijuana and related paraphernalia, of which Sudduth had been in possession.
Co-defendant Montavius Trevaun Jackson, 18, of Harker Heights pleaded guilty on Dec. 16, 2021, to aggravated robbery. He is set to be sentenced on Feb. 2.
