A Moreno Valley man who shot his wife in the head in the same room where their 3-year-old daughter slept was sentenced Friday to 18 years in prison.
(Flickr: steakpinball)
Jose Ricardo Delgado, 27, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, spousal abuse and child endangerment in connection with the attack last Dec. 30 at the couple’s apartment in the 12000 block of Shadowbrook Street.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Charles Koosed imposed the upper term sentence for each of the counts. Delgado will be eligible for parole in 15 years.
According to trial testimony, the defendant inflicted a grazing wound on Stacy Cortez during a domestic squabble stemming from his drug use.
The methamphetamine user, who referred to the victim as his “world,” said he was high on the drug and hadn’t slept more than two hours over a three-day span when he got into an argument with his wife that culminated in gunfire.
Deputy District Attorney Nicole Mariam, recalling statements Delgado made to sheriff’s investigators, said he told his wife that if she didn’t stop yelling at him, he would “put a bullet in” her.
Mariam said Delgado picked up several bullets, placed them in the chamber of a revolver, spun the chamber and leveled the handgun at Cortez, who was standing adjacent to a crib in which the couple’s 3-year-old daughter was sleeping.
According to testimony, Delgado fired one time, the bullet ricocheting off the side of the woman’s head. She has since fully recovered.
The child was not hurt.
Delgado testified that he fired randomly and never took aim at his wife.
Jurors deadlocked on whether to convict him of attempted murder, and the prosecution decided against retrying him on that one count.
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