Jan. 26--FORT LAUDERDALE -- A chiropractor who calmly walked up to a Lighthouse Point police station and opened fire in December 2009 pleaded no contest to an attempted murder charge Wednesday and was immediately sentenced to three years in prison.
Xavier Maurice Escobar, 41, will be placed on community control, a form of house arrest, for two years after his release from Florida state prison, said Broward Circuit Judge Raag Singhal. Escobar will then be on probation for 10 years.
Prosecutors say Escobar, who was a partner at Florida Atlantic Orthopedics in Boca Raton and All Florida Pain Management in Pompano Beach, approached the Lighthouse Point police station at 3701 NE 22nd Ave. and started firing in several directions.
"One round ended up in the residence of a woman who lived across the street," said Assistant State Attorney John Countryman. "She was not home at the time."
Escobar , who had planned an insanity defense, negotiated a plea deal through his lawyers, Richard Merlino and Jeffrey Voluck, that dismissed a weapons-related charge in exchange for the no-contest plea on the second-degree attempted murder count.
The weapons charge would have subjected Escobar to a mandatory 20-year prison term. The maximum penalty for second-degree attempted murder is 15 years, a sentence Escobar could still face if he violates the conditions of his house arrest or probation.
Merlino and Voluck told Singhal that Escobar would like to return to his native Ecuador following his release, but permission to leave the country would have to be granted at that time.
Escobar was the only person wounded in the incident, after an officer shot him in the arm and abdomen to take him down. Afterward, Escobar tested positive for cocaine, cannabinoids, benzodiazepines and opiates, according to state health department records.
He later acknowledged a "chemical dependency problem" and said he needed help, the health department records state.
Escobar will get credit for 101 days he served in the Broward County jail after his arrest, Singhal said. He will not get credit for several months he spent as an inpatient at a Gainesville recovery center.
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Copyright 2012 - Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
