Criminal Justice

Woman gets 22 years in prison after showing up at her lawyer's office with a loaded shotgun

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woman's hands in jail

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A 78-year-old woman found guilty of raising a loaded shotgun toward her former lawyer before he wrestled it away from her has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Patricia Currie of Mandeville, Louisiana, was sentenced last Thursday, report the Associated Press, NOLA.com and WDSU.

Jurors had found Currie guilty of attempted second-degree murder in an August retrial after deliberating for only 15 minutes. A mistrial was declared in a previous trial.

Lawyer Keith Couture testified that he found Currie sitting in his office lobby wearing latex gloves and plastic grocery bags on her feet. She had a towel on her lap.

When Couture asked Currie why she was in the office, she said she wanted to kill him. She showed Couture the gun under the towel and raised the weapon toward him, Couture testified.

Couture said he wrestled the gun away from Currie, who testified that she was just trying to scare the lawyer.

Couture had sought to withdraw as Currie’s lawyer in a bankruptcy case a few weeks before the October 2016 incident. Currie was seeking to strip a junior lien on her property filed by her condo association in a battle over unpaid monthly dues, according to previous coverage of Currie’s arrest.

Couture’s wife testified at sentencing that their children live in fear that their father could be killed at work.

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