Donald Mooney was originally charged with manslaughter.

BELFAST (AP) – A Palermo man who shot and killed a neighbor during a domestic dispute will serve a 60-day jail term under a sentence imposed Monday in Waldo County Superior Court.

Donald “Larry” Mooney, 37, of Palermo, was sentenced by Justice Nancy Mills after pleading no contest to a charge of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon. He will also serve three years of probation, the Kennebec Journal reported.

Mooney had been charged with manslaughter in the shooting of Daniel Walsh, 40, on May 27, 2002. But a grand jury indicted him on lesser charges of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and reckless conduct with a firearm. The criminal-threatening charge was dismissed in return for the plea.

“This is an unusual case,” Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese said. “There’s no question Larry Mooney was attempting to do the right thing. But he had other options. He could have called the police.”

Marchese said Mooney and Walsh had been drinking at Mooney’s house earlier on the day of the shooting.

Later, after Walsh returned home, his wife sent her children to ask Mooney to intervene in a family dispute.

Mooney, who had calmed Walsh in the past, found Walsh chasing the children, Marchese said. Walsh ordered his wife and children to leave before leaving himself.

Mooney, meanwhile, retrieved a revolver and returned to the Walsh trailer. When Walsh returned home, there was a struggle over the gun and Mooney fired a warning shot. When Walsh came at him again, Marchese said, Mooney fired four shots, hitting Walsh once in the head.

Walsh’s mother was in the courtroom on Monday, and his widow wrote a letter to the judge. Marchese said the Walsh family supported the plea agreement.

Walter McKee, Mooney’s attorney, said Mooney agreed to plead no contest to the lesser charge because, if found guilty of criminal threatening, he would have had to serve a minimum sentence of a year in prison.

Mooney received a three-week stay of his sentence to make child-care arrangements for his son.

He also was ordered to pay $750 in restitution to the victim’s compensation fund, which paid for Walsh’s funeral.

Mooney told the judge his income consists of an annuity of $35,000 every five years and Social Security disability payments.

Mooney collects the payments because he lost the lower part of his left arm in a 1997 wood-chipping accident in Georgia.

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AP-ES-02-02-04 1959EST