NASHUA – To Brandon Laws, his longtime close friend Joseph Schulte is a “lovable, bear-hug kind of guy, the one you call when you need help moving kind of guy,” Laws told a Superior Court judge last week.

“Joe is full of remorse, regret … for disappointing himself,” Laws continued. “I know Joe very well. He’s not the type of person” to find himself standing before a judge awaiting sentencing on felony assault charges accusing him of stabbing two men three years ago.

Laws, a Nashua alderman-at-large at the time of the incident, was one of several people close to Schulte to address Judge Charles Temple at Schulte’s sentencing hearing, which was also attended by the two young men who Schulte attacked -nearly stabbing one of them to death – during an alcohol-and-jealousy-fueled confrontation outside a Pelham residence early Christmas morning 2020.

Schulte, who was initially charged with two counts of second-degree assault and four counts of first-degree assault, reached a plea deal in which he agreed to plead guilty to the two second-degree assault charges in exchange for dropping the four first-degree assault charges.

Assistant County Attorney John Harding and Schulte’s lawyer, Attorney Chuck Keefe, argued their respective cases at the hearing’s outset. Their sentencing recommendations varied considerably: Harding asked Temple to sentence Schulte to 3-6 years in State Prison, stand committed, while Keefe recommended a 1-year minimum sentence.

After more than 30

minutes reviewing the arguments and testimony, Temple imposed a sentence of 1-6 years in State Prison. The sides also agreed that Schulte pay roughly $7,300 to the state victims’ compensation fund; that he have no contact with either of the victims; and that he perform 100 hours of community service within 12 months of his release from prison.

According to police reports and court testimony, Schulte, now 31, with a last known address of 8 Clergy Circle in Nashua, had someone drive him late Christmas Eve to a residence on Old County Road in Pelham, where he sought to confront a man who Schulte learned was beginning to date a woman with whom Schulte had been in a relationship.

When he arrived, according to reports, Schulte headed toward the backyard, where several people were sitting around a bonfire. He reportedly came in contact with one of the two victims, and, according to Harding, began stabbing the man with some type of sharp object, believed to be a box-cutter.

When the other victim tried to stop the attack, Schulte turned on him, according to reports. Schulte soon fled the scene. Other people present called police, and they, along with firefighters and emergency medical personnel, arrived to find the two critically injured men in the yard.

Both were rushed to hospitals, one to Lowell General and the other was eventually transferred to Tufts University Medical Center.

Harding told the court that Schulte “traveled from Nashua to Pelham with the intent to harm” the first victim, and characterized the incident as a “brutal, unprovoked attack” on both of them.

“Mr. Schulte left Nashua with one goal in mind: To attack” the first victim, Harding said, and therefore “a State Prison sentence is appropriate, not a House of Correction sentence as the defense proposes,” Harding added, referring to Keefe’s proposal that Schulte serve his sentence in jail rather than State Prison.

Another of the four friends of Schulte’s who addressed the court at the hearing was Gina Fitzgerald, who began by extending best wishes to the two victims.

“As a mother of two children in their 20s, I’m grateful you are here to help you get past this,” Fitzgerald said to the two men.

Although more than three years have elapsed since the attacks, Fitzgerald said she is “still in complete shock that we’re here to address this. I could never imagine” Schulte committing the acts he’s accused of. “It’s so uncharacteristic for him.

“The Joe Schulte I know is in no way capable of doing what he did,” she added.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.