A Salem man pleaded guilty Friday to several charges stemming from a 2013 escape attempt from Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, where he shot a Middlesex deputy sheriff, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.
Raymond Wallace, 46, was sentenced in Suffolk Superior Court to 12 years in prison for assault, gun, and escape charges, which he will serve concurrently with a 16- to 18-year sentence he’s already serving in Essex County for a probation violation, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Wallace was also sentenced to two to three years in prison on the attempted escape charge, which he will serve after the 12-year sentence, prosecutors said. The earliest he will be eligible for parole will be March 2027.
A deputy sheriff shot Wallace three times during the confrontation, his attorney, David J. Grimaldi, said Saturday in an e-mail to the Globe. As a result, Wallace lost multiple organs and developed fistulas in his abdomen “that doctors predict will never heal,” he added.
“Ray Wallace has already suffered tremendously for his crime,” Grimaldi said. “To this day, he requires 24-hour medical attention in a hospital or infirmary setting. We are satisfied with his concurrent sentence and hope that all parties can move on from this tragic ordeal.”
On July 31, 2013, two deputy sheriffs took Wallace to Mass. Eye and Ear after he suffered an injury at the Middlesex Jail in Cambridge, where he was being held on armed robbery charges, the Globe previously reported.
There, Wallace tried to escape, grabbing a deputy’s gun, which led to a struggle in which one of the deputies was shot in the leg, prosecutors said. The other deputy shot Wallace in the chest.
Since then, Wallace has been in Department of Correction custody, primarily at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital Correctional Unit in Jamaica Plain.
Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden praised the deputy sheriffs for their courage a decade earlier.
“The brave actions of these two deputies during a violent escape attempt in a crowded downtown Boston hospital likely prevented additional injuries, or even fatalities,” Hayden said in the statement.
Middlesex Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian identified the deputies as Sean Lee and Jonathan Persson and said Persson had been wounded during the attack.
“But the quick and decisive actions of Officers Persson and Lee stopped Wallace from escaping the building and reigning terror in the heart of the city,” Koutoujian said in a statement. “The efforts of Officer Persson and Officer Lee were nothing short of heroic and surely prevented countless others from being injured or killed by Wallace.”
Jesús Marrero Suárez can be reached at jesus.marrerosuarez@globe.com. Follow him @jmarrerosuarez.