AUBURN — A New Hampshire man who fired a gun at a pickup truck with three people in it during an altercation near Meineke Car Care Center at 199 Court St. last year was sentenced Friday to serve 21 months of a five-year sentence.
Steven Patterson, 26, of Concord, N.H., is booked into Androscoggin County Jail in June 2023 after a shooting on Court Street in Auburn. He was sentenced on Friday. Androscoggin County Jail
Steven Patterson, 26, of Concord, New Hampshire, entered Alford pleas in Androscoggin County Superior Court where he appeared by videoconference from Androscoggin County Jail. He pleaded to seven charges stemming from the June 26, 2023, incident.
An Alford plea is a guilty plea in which the defendant maintains his innocence, but concedes that the prosecutor’s evidence could result in a guilty verdict if the case had gone to trial.
He entered guilty pleas on a charge of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and three charges of reckless conduct with a firearm, each count punishable by up to five years in prison.
Patterson also pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges, including criminal mischief, falsifying physical evidence and discharging a firearm or crossbow near a dwelling.
His attorney, Verne Paradie, argued for his client to serve only one year of the five-year sentence.
Assistant District Attorney Nathan Walsh sought to have Patterson serve three years of the sentence.
Active-retired Justice Roland A. Cole split the difference, adding two years of probation to the sentence.
After Patterson is released from jail, he will be prohibited from having any alcohol and illegal drugs and may not have any contact with the victims who were in the truck at which he fired the gun.
Patterson is barred from having any dangerous weapons for which he may be searched at random.
He is required to undergo mental health and substance abuse evaluations and treatment to the satisfaction of his probation officer.
Walsh said that if the case had gone to trial, he would have presented witnesses who would have testified that they were riding in a pickup truck on Court Street the night of June 26 when a man jumped into the road, blocked traffic and waved his arms.
When the men in the truck told him to move, Patterson took out a gun and fired a shot into the truck, shattering the passenger-side window.
Police later confirmed there was a bullet hole on the outside of the truck.
Another witness said he saw Patterson fire a gun at the truck.
Police found a loaded Smith & Wesson semi-automatic .380-caliber pistol near the Auburn Public Library.
Police also found a single shell casing that matched the type and brand found in the gun, Walsh said.
Police retrieved a bullet from the truck that matched the casing and gun, Walsh said.
Patterson told police he’d been drinking heavily that day and had been arguing with his girlfriend. He said he needed to remove himself from her before he became violent, so he went into the street to flag down a passing motorist for help. That’s when he encountered the men in the pickup truck, who yelled at him to get out of the road.
Patterson had claimed he’d been fired at, but couldn’t explain how the bullet struck the outside of the truck.
He denied he’d had a gun and told police the last time he’d fired one was in South Carolina weeks earlier.
Police later traced the gun found at the scene to a dealer in South Carolina.
Paradie pointed out that, while Patterson has no criminal history, the men in the truck had “lengthy” records.
Paradie also said Patterson had not been the instigator, but “would admit that he was drunk … and never should have had a firearm to begin with and he flipped out and he made a poor mistake of shooting the gun at the vehicle and then he panicked and did try to dispose of the gun.”
Paradie said his client had grown up in an unstable home after his mother died when he was 7 years old and that he had been physically assaulted in his youth.
Patterson told the judge: “I’m really sorry. It was a stupid foolish mistake. I misread the situation, was intoxicated and didn’t make any good decisions that day and I highly regret it.”
Justice Cole said Patterson “should say a prayer every day for the fact that that bullet didn’t hit somebody and kill them.”
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