Without admitting guilt, a 77-year-old East Toledo man on trial for the murder of a man who barged into his home entered an Alford plea Tuesday to a much less serious charge of reckless homicide.

Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Gene Zmuda then found Gordon Hutson guilty of the third-degree felony for the March 26 shooting death of Joel Brown, Jr., 29, of Toledo. Hutson of the 700 block of Chesbrough Street faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced Oct.. 25, although the charge does not carry any mandatory prison time.

The plea agreement came on the second day of Hutson's jury trial and just before prosecutors were planning to rest their case.

Hutson maintained he was acting in self-defense.

“You never know what a jury is going to do, and at the last minute Gordon Hutson decided to cut out the possibility of things going drastically wrong,” defense attorney Mark Geudtner, said afterward. “He had to make a decision whether to testify or not, and he didn't know how he was going to come off. Frankly, he told me he would like to tell his story.”

Earlier in the day, the jury did hear Hutson's account of the incident in a videotaped interview with Toledo police detectives on the day of the shooting.

Hutson told police he was doing the dishes in his kitchen when Brown — a drug dealer who he believed had broken into his house a few months earlier — walked in uninvited looking for Jody Alford.

Brown said Ms. Alford, a friend of Hutson's who stayed at his house, owed him money for drugs. Hutson said he tried to get Brown out of the house, but he wouldn't leave.

“I don't know if he grabbed her or not, but she was screaming,” Hutson said in the interview.

He said he retrieved a .22-caliber Luger, and when Brown saw it, he headed for the door.

When Det. Jeff Clark asked Hutson why he fired when Brown was leaving, Hutson responded, “I had to defend myself, and this guy here is a bully.”

At one point in the interview, Hutson asked how Brown was doing, and Detective Clark told him he had died.

Hutson broke down in tears.

“I'm sorry,” he can be heard saying. “I'm so sorry.”

Before he entered into the plea agreement, Judge Zmuda told him that by doing so he was giving up his right to complete the trial.

“With this plea, the trial is done,” the judge said, “The jury will be discharged. You'll never know what they would've done.”

In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit to committing a crime, but acknowledges evidence is sufficient for a conviction that could result in a more severe sentence.

Had Hutson been convicted of murder and the gun specification, he would have faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison with the opportunity for parole after 18 years.

Judge Zmuda allowed Hutson to remain free on a supervised recognizance bond, which included electronic monitoring.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.

First Published October 3, 2017, 8:36 p.m.