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LA GRANDE — A Baker City man who was sentenced in 2021 to almost nine years in prison after spraying bear spray in the face of a Baker City Police officer, had nine years added to his prison term after pleading guilty to robbery and attempted assault from 2021 crimes in La Grande, including shooting a gun at a woman and threatening a couple with a gun.

Travis James Sprague, 27, has been incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton since July 2021 on the Baker County conviction.

He pleaded guilty to two counts on July 8 of this year in Union County Circuit Court — first-degree robbery, a Class A felony, and attempted second-degree assault, a Class B felony.

Baker County District Attorney Greg Baxter prosecuted Sprague on the Union County charges. Baxter said he offered to handle the case as Union County prosecutors had a murder case to deal with. He noted Sprague’s crime spree started in Baker County.

Judge Thomas B. Powers sentenced Sprague to 90 months in prison on the robbery charge, as well as five years of probation, and 18 months in prison, and three years of probation, on the attempted assault charge.

Sprague also pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in Baker County, so his sentence includes 15 years of mandatory time. The Union County sentences are consecutive with the Baker County case, meaning Sprague will start serving the Union County sentence after the Baker County sentence is finished.

Baker County charges

Sprague pleaded guilty to spraying Baker City Police officer Koby Essex with bear spray on May 14, 2021, while Essex was talking with Sprague following a report that Sprague had assaulted a woman.

Sprague also admitted he hit a woman in the face with the butt of a shotgun while stealing her cellphone in Baker City earlier in the day.

Sprague, who was on probation for a menacing conviction in Baker City on Jan. 8, 2021, also was accused in Baker County on several other charges, including first-degree assault, menacing and coercion, that were dismissed in a plea agreement.

Baxter said at the time of Sprague’s conviction in July 2021 that he was satisfied with the nearly nine-year prison sentence for Sprague.

Union County charges

La Grande Police started looking for Sprague after a 911 call May 19, 2021, when a woman in the 1700 block of East Glacier Street reported she had just been shot at while standing in front of her residence.

While officers were responding, an additional 911 call came from a separate residence in the same block on Glacier. The second caller reported the suspect entered a residence and held a couple at gunpoint while demanding keys to their vehicle.

A Union County sheriff’s deputy on May 20, 2021, saw Sprague walking on 22nd Street near East L Avenue, contacted him and told him he was under arrest. He fled, but police caught him.

Police later determined Sprague had broken into another house in the same neighborhood and put the barrel of a shotgun against the resident’s forehead.

The charges related to that incident were among the six counts dismissed in a plea agreement.