EVERETT — A Marysville man has been sentenced to nearly eight years in prison for gunfire aimed at the house where his son’s grandmother lives.
Prosecutors alleged the Gordon Najera Jr. was upset over a long-standing child custody battle. The victim told police that she was involved in the dispute between her daughter and the defendant. The couple have a son but aren’t together, court papers said.
Najera, 39, fired at the woman’s house on Aug. 27. She and a relative were inside at the time. Minutes earlier they had been sitting on the porch. Two bullets hit the house, including one that lodged itself in a living room wall.
Najera pleaded guilty in April to first-degree assault.
Initially he denied being involved in the gunfire, telling detectives he had been home all evening. His cellphone told a different story.
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives used a search warrant to seize his phone records. The data showed that Najera’s phone was near a cell tower close to the woman’s home at the time of the shooting. His cellphone “pinged off” other towers located on the route from the woman’s Everett-area home to Najera’s residence in Marysville, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Chris Dickinson wrote in charging papers.
Najera has nearly two dozen misdemeanor convictions, including a handful for assaults.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley
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