Honor student’s boyfriend pleads guilty

A plea on Wednesday ended the tale of an honor student and her boyfriend, neither with previous criminal records, who made a mistake that will ensure they start their adult lives in prison.

Avery Loring, 19, pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree assault in connection with a reported robbery attempt last summer near Gonzaga University. Loring’s girlfriend, 18-year-old Alyssa Anderson, pleaded guilty earlier this month to four counts of attempted robbery and received seven years in prison.

“It is a tragedy,” Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor said before sentencing Loring to serve the next four years in prison. “I do remember when both of you came through, and just everybody was shaking their heads why. But you made a choice that night, and it was wrong.”

Anderson was an honor student at Rogers High School and volunteered on Saturdays helping with the youth at her church. Loring moved to Spokane a couple of years ago from Los Angeles and had dropped out of Ferris High School. He has earned his GED while in jail.

Deputy Prosecutor Matt Duggan and Assistant Public Defender Matthew Harget said that for some reason Anderson hatched a plan for the armed robbery.

She put on a ski mask last summer, pointed a shotgun at four young men near Gonzaga University and demanded their money. Her boyfriend hid behind a nearby bush.

“It’s very hard to understand this case. She was an honor student, and she had family support but she also had some financial problems,” Harget said. “She needed money to make car payments and insurance payments and things like that, and she decided that this was a quick way to make some money.”

Apparently, Anderson didn’t want to ask her family for the money, Harget said.

“My client was in love with her … and wanted to try to talk her out of her plan,” Harget said. “And when he couldn’t talk her out of it … he tried to watch to make sure she didn’t get hurt. And when things went bad, when the victims overpowered her, he tried to run out and save her.”

Loring struck a 17-year-old victim in the head with a tire iron, causing a large gash and a concussion, from which he recovered after a few days.

“The lucky thing in this case was that nobody was seriously, seriously hurt,” Harget said. “This was obviously a very frightening situation for these four victims.”

Duggan agreed to reduce charges in both cases, with Anderson receiving almost twice the time in prison as Loring.

“In my eyes, his role was the lesser of the two,” Duggan said. “Whether or not he put her up to it, the testimony would have been that he tried to talk her out of it.”

Despite the agreement, Loring asked Judge O’Connor for leniency.

“I was raised to have respect and to obey the law,” Loring said. “When I came to jail, I became aware of who I was and who I was becoming and I wanted to change. A failure to plan is a plan that fails. So I have used my time here to further my education. I ask you to see me as a young man who needs a chance at life.

“Your honor, I am asking for an exceptional sentence now,” he said.

O’Connor said she was largely bound on the law and could not comply.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Loring, simply because a defendant has truly seen, truly seen, that what they did was wrong and wants to make amends … is not a basis for getting an exceptional sentence,” she said. “I think the bottom line is, Mr. Loring, you stepped over the line when you got involved with this with a tire iron, and somebody got hurt.”