Valparaiso man charged in shooting has bond set at $3,500
Informs judge he’s hiring an attorney; court date Nov. 9
A Valparaiso man charged with three felonies in the Sept. 16 shooting of a female relative and her boyfriend had his bond set at $3,500 cash during a Monday court hearing.
Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford also set preliminary pleas of not guilty on the charges for Joseph Scott, 19, of the 600 block of Glendale Boulevard, and issued a no-contact order at the request of the state, between Scott and the male shooting victim.
Scott faces charges of aggravated battery, a level 3 felony; battery with a deadly weapon, a level 5 felony; and criminal recklessness, also a level 5 felony. The level 3 felony carries a sentence of three to 16 years, Bradford said, and the sentence for the lower level felony is one to six years.
Scott, appearing via videoconference from Porter County Jail because of the COVID-19 pandemic, told Bradford he is in the process of hiring an attorney. Bradford set Scott’s next court date for 9 a.m. Nov. 9, with a status hearing at 9 a.m. Dec. 7 and a pretrial conference at 9 a.m. Jan. 4.
According to court documents, when police arrived at the scene around 7:15 a.m. Sept. 16, they saw a man with an abdominal injury and blood soaked clothing near a black Dodge Ram in the parking lot south of the apartment complex. The victim pointed to the corner of the parking lot, near a white Toyota Camry, and police saw Scott with a pistol in his hand.
Police ordered Scott to set the pistol down on the roof of the car and ordered him away from the passenger seat, where someone was sitting and had their legs out of the vehicle.
Police ordered the passenger to get out of the vehicle but Scott told them the woman in the passenger seat had been shot and Scott told police he believed the man may have a weapon.
The woman, 40, who police said in charging documents also had been shot in the abdomen, told police she was being beaten by the man and Scott, her relative, had shot her.
The man, 38, told police that “nothing warrants this,” and said Scott just shot him in the back while he was standing up. He claimed he never had a weapon, according to court documents.
The woman told police she and the man, who were in a relationship, got into an argument in her bedroom.
The man, she told police, grabbed a laptop cord and raised it like he was going to hit her. The woman, who noted the bedroom door was open, said Scott entered the room “and she heard gunshots and couldn’t recall much of what happened next.” She told police she didn’t know who was shot first and added that both Scott and the man had weapons.
Both victims were transported to Chicago area hospitals for treatment, police said.