MAN WHO FILMED MOCK SHOOTINGS GETS PRISON ON WEAPON CHARGE
Pleads guilty to possessing illegal rifle, child abuse
A Spring Valley man who drew law enforcement attention for posting YouTube videos that appeared to show him rehearsing a mass shooting inside a downtown San Diego hotel room was sentenced last week to three years and eight months in state prison.
Steve Homoki, 32, pleaded guilty last month to one count of possessing an illegal assault rifle and one count of child abuse, a charge brought after a search of his home turned up several loaded guns that authorities said were accessible to minors.
Police arrested Homoki in late 2019 after the FBI received a tip regarding a pair of YouTube videos recorded at The Sofia Hotel on West Broadway in downtown. The videos, which were apparently recorded with a body camera, feature a firstperson perspective of a man loading and aiming guns out a window at people walking along the streets below his hotel room.
In one video, he takes aim at a person walking outside, pulls the trigger — to no effect — and says, “One down, more to go.”
The videos were filmed in March 2019 and posted online about six months later.
Homoki was arrested shortly after authorities received the anonymous tip that December and searched his home. During his December 2019 arraignment, Deputy District Attorney Wendy Patrick said authorities found 14 legally purchased guns, including three that had been modified to make them illegal assault weapons.
In addition to the weapon and child abuse charges, Homoki also admitted to embezzlement and grand theft charges in an unrelated case in which prosecutors say he took money from his family’s business. He was accused of withdrawing money from his employer’s account and putting it into his own between June 2016 and June 2019.
As part of his plea agreement, Homoki agreed to pay back nearly $172,000, Deputy District Attorney Ryan Karkenny said last month.
Defense attorney Oscar Valencia asked for a lenient sentence, saying a combination of mental health issues and alcohol abuse were central to his client’s conduct.
Since his incarceration, Valencia said Homoki has been able to obtain therapy and is forced to remain sober.
“Mr. Homoki is really not a threat to society as long as he is a) sober and b) getting mental health services,” Valencia said.
The attorney said Homoki has no prior criminal history and was “remorseful and he has taken responsibility.”
Deputy District Attorney Leonard Trinh said Homoki was using alcohol as an “excuse” for what occurred.
Trinh said Homoki was acting in a “very deliberate and planned manner” in the videos and that he did not believe alcohol had any impact on either recording the videos or posting the videos online months later.
Trinh said Homoki was “extremely lucky that he didn’t have an accidental discharge when he was filming these shootings — these mock shootings — from The Sofia Hotel.”
In a gun violence restraining order petition filed in late 2019, the person who provided the tip to police reported noticing Homoki “slowly become less stable over the period of almost an entire year.”
The tipster believed Homoki had “gone off the deep end” and was worried that he “is planning something or already has a plan,” according to court documents.
In a 2019 jailhouse interview with CBS 8, Homoki did not offer a clear explanation of what the videos were intended to achieve, but described them as part of an “art project.”
Homoki repeated several times that he did not intend to harm anyone and was merely expressing his First Amendment rights by making the videos, which he said were never meant to be seen by the general public and had been “blown out of proportion.”