Ramona

A Ramona man who left a live rattlesnake in a box for his mother as “a great joke� was sentenced Friday to three years in state prison.

San Diego Superior Court Judge J. Richard Haden rejected probation for Marvin Pruitt, 28, who pleaded guilty Oct. 23 to assault with a deadly weapon. He was fined $300.

The snake was left in a box in the driveway of Bernice Eldridge, 51, in Ramona on Aug. 4 after Pruitt yelled at her that the box contained photographs she wanted.

His mother instead called a deputy sheriff, who found the 15-inch snake, with its rattle cut off, along with some paper in the box.

Pruitt’s attorney, Ronald Brahms, told Haden that co-defendant David Pocock, 20, caught the snake and that Pruitt and Pocock thought “it would be a great joke.�

“It was a practical joke, though it could have ended in death,� Brahms said.

Pruitt has spent the past three months in Chino State Prison in a diagnostic study. Prison officials recommended to Haden that Pruitt be sentenced to prison and not probation.

Brahms blamed the incident on Pruitt’s alcoholism.

Pocock, of Ramona, was fined $700 and given a 180-day jail term that was stayed on conditions of three years’ probation by Municipal Court Judge Herbert Exarhos on Dec. 5.

Because Pocock is British, he could be deported because of his felony conviction of assault with a deadly weapon.

Pruitt, a welder, told officials that before his arrest, he hadn’t had a sober day since his father was killed in a car accident in Tennessee in March, 1986. He said he drank whisky daily.