LEWISTON — A Lewiston man was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for shooting through a window and striking a woman while she was in her children’s bedroom last year.
Jordan Bunting appears Wednesday in 8th District Court in Lewiston from Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn. He entered a plea and was sentenced for a shooting in Lewiston last year. Screenshot from video
Jordan Bunting, 23, entered an Alford plea Wednesday in 8th District Court to the charge of reckless conduct with a firearm. That means he’s not admitting guilt, but understands that he likely would be convicted of the charge if the case were to go to trial.
The maximum penalty for the Class C felony is five years in prison.
Prosecutors dismissed related charges of theft by unauthorized taking and aggravated forgery.
Assistant District Attorney Neil McLean told active-retired Justice Roland A. Cole that, had the case gone to trial, he would have presented witnesses who would have testified that Bunting and a juvenile had been on College Street on the night of April 24, 2020, when a woman was shot while in her children’s bedroom.
The woman’s husband had notified police after the shooting.
Police traced the trajectory of the bullet and followed the path back to a spot on the street where they recovered a 9 mm casing that matched a Glock pistol the juvenile’s mother said had been stolen from a safe in her home earlier that night.
The juvenile told police that he and Bunting had been at his home that evening. After leaving his home, Bunting had shown him his mother’s pistol and was playing with it when it accidentally discharged on College Street, McLean said.
The two later encountered a police officer to whom Bunting gave a false name.
The gun was never recovered.
The slug entered the home through a window and exited the building. It was never found.
The victim told Justice Cole on Wednesday that the incident “deeply affected” her physically and mentally.
She had been in her children’s bedroom, her two children in their beds, when the bullet came through the window, passed over the children’s beds and struck her.
The bullet entered her lower back and exited her abdomen, McLean said.
There was “not enough counseling” available for her to ever forget that night, the woman said Wednesday.
“Obviously, this could have been a homicide but for the grace of God” and the direction of the bullet, Justice Cole said.
Bunting will be credited for the 14 months he has spent in jail awaiting trial.
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