A Superior Court judge on May 14 denied an Auburn man’s request for a new trial and sentenced him to 19½ months in prison for first-degree attempted murder.

Ronald Gray, 21, had hoped to appeal the judgement rendered by a jury at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent earlier this year. The jury had him guilty of first-degree attempted murder with a deadly weapon enhancement for repeatedly stabbing Leroy Travers on the night of Aug. 7, 2011.

Judge LeRoy McCullough sentenced Gray.

According to court records, Gray and two companions that night had been repeatedly threatening individuals who just happened to be walking down C Street Southeast, challenging them to fight. An officer who responded to a report of “juveniles fighting” near the intersection of C Street Southeast and 21st Street Southeast arrived just as two men came together and began fighting.

According to court records, the officer’s car video captured one of the men, later identified as Gray, making at least seven swinging, stabbing motions to the other man’s left side in four seconds. According to records, Gray, stabbed Travers after Travers had asked him and his companions to stop what they were doing and leave the neighborhood.

Travers underwent emergency surgery to remove several inches of his lower intestine and doctors placed him in a medically-induced coma.

Gray’s criminal history lists felony convictions for assault and second-degree robbery, and misdemeanor convictions for criminal trespassing, theft, minor in possession, use of drug paraphernalia and criminal trespassing.