Breast implant shooter gets four years

A man who shot his ex-girlfriend seven years ago, an incident in which the bullet passed through both of the woman’s breast implants, has been handed a total prison sentence of four years.

However, with credit for more than three years already served, said Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Jones, Fernando Chora will only have 254 days left from his sentence still to serve in connection with the Jan. 2, 2006, incident at Okotoks.

The judge also ordered Chora, 61, to provide a DNA sample and prohibited him for life from owning or possessing any firearms or other weapons.

Jones had convicted Chora in early December of possessing a restricted loaded weapon, possessing a weapon while prohibited, breaking and entering the home of a senior couple — his former landlords — and confining them early the next morning.

Court heard Chora fled in his exgirlfriend’s vehicle after the shooting, and broke into the farm home of his former landlord-employer in the middle of the night. He remained there until the couple got up and pulled a gun on them.

The next morning, he had breakfast with the couple, but again pulled the gun on them when Mounties came to the door regarding the shooting. He later fled to Lethbridge, where he was arrested, but then went on the lam for five years.

The judge gave Chora two years for the break-in, which he said had elements of a home-invasion robbery, and one year each on the two weapons charges.

The judge had also acquitted him at the time of assault with a weapon and aggravated assault. He concluded it was accidental as he could not determine if Chora intended to cause bodily harm when he fired the gun.

Eileen Likness testified during the trial that the implants, which took the brunt of the damage from the bullet fired from a 9-millimetre Beretta, likely saved her life.

Defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli had sought to have his client not serve any more time.

Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen, who argued for a total of eight years, had told the judge Chora intentionally shot the woman and that he told police he “had lost control of himself.”

Likness had testified the incident occurred after she and Chora had driven around the countryside south of Calgary for several hours and she got frustrated and wanted to go back to Calgary.

She had stopped on the street to drop him off, but she added Chora exited the car and was some four to five metres away when the shot was fired.

She did not actually see him pull the trigger.