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NILES – A former Niles man who got out of prison in November 2018 is going back to prison after being sentenced Monday in Berrien County Trial Court.

Michael Jerome Exom III, 33, now of Gary, Indiana, pleaded guilty to delivery/manufacture of narcotics/cocaine less than 50 grams and was sentenced to 34 months to 20 years in prison, said Berrien County Assistant Prosecutor Nicholas DeRyke.

Exom has credit for no time served as he was on parole when this happened.

The incident occurred July 28, 2019, in Niles. Exom was arrested in December and has been in jail since then.

Charges of delivery/manufacture of methamphetamines and being a habitual offender were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Exom’s most recent prison sentence began in 2017 when he was convicted of third offense domestic violence and received a sentence of 29 months in prison. He previously received a sentence of 18 months in prison for a 2004 conviction for fleeing and eluding police.

The incident that led to the 2017 domestic violence sentence took place when Exom had an altercation with a woman outside of Gary’s Furniture Restoration and Storage on M-51 North in Niles Township on March 22, 2015.

The woman, who has a child with Exom, met Exom that day at the storage facility and was shot. She was able to get to the highway to get assistance after he left the scene.

Exom ended up on the run for a month and a half before being apprehended by U.S. Marshals in the South Bend area. He faced domestic battery charges in Indiana and was in prison there before he was sent back to Michigan in 2016.

Exom was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a concealed weapon in an auto, third offense domestic violence and possession of a firearm by a felon. He pled to the third offense domestic violence charge.

The victim and a Berrien County Sheriff’s detective testified about the incident at a 2016 hearing. The woman said she agreed to meet Exom that day and that he talked of killing himself before she ended up being shot in the stomach.

While she said she did not remember if Exom shot her or if someone else was there, the detective said the victim said at the time that Exom was the one who shot her. As for the woman’s injuries, she had to have part of her intestines, pancreas and left ovary removed.

As has been the case in recent weeks, the Monday sentencing docket was a limited one with the courtroom closed to the public and the defendant appearing via closed circuit television from the jail. The Michigan Supreme Court has ordered local courts to reduce the number of hearings and sentencings hosted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.