A magistrate judge in Pennsylvania blinded her boyfriend in one eye by shooting him in the head as he slept after he tried to break up with her, a court heard.
Sonya McKnight was convicted on Wednesday of attempting to kill her former partner, Michael McCoy, in the early hours of February 10, 2024.
The couple were living in McCoy’s Harrisburg, PA home at the time, but he tried to break up with McKnight that night and asked her to leave.
The jilted judge responded by shooting him in the head as he slept hours later. She called 911 around 12.50am and told EMS that her partner needed an ambulance.
McCoy told detectives he had been asleep for around an hour when woke ‘with massive head pain’ and could not see, according to a police report.
Prosecutors argued at trial that McKnight was a jealous partner who ‘didn’t like’ that McCoy had asked her to leave his home.
They added that she even tried to convince her boyfriend he had shot himself.
Her attorney hit back, claiming that McCoy couldn’t identify the shooter, and that the highest concentration of gunpowder residue was found on his hands.
A magistrate judge in Pennsylvania blinded her boyfriend in one eye by shooting him in the head as he slept after he tried to break up with her, a court heard. Sonya McKnight (pictured right) was convicted on Wednesday of attempting to kill her former partner, Michael McCoy
McCoy testified that he couldn’t see after the shooting, but that McKnight was the only other person in the home at the time.
‘There were two people in that house, and only two people in that house,’ District Attorney Sean McCormack told reporters after the verdict.
‘And one of them, the one who was shot, said he did not shoot himself.’
Jurors deliberated for two hours before convicting McKnight of attempted homicide and aggravated assault on Wednesday. She now faces up to 60 years in prison.
McKnight was taken away in handcuffs after the trial judge rejected her defense request that she be released. She is set to be sentenced on May 28.
The convict had been an elected judge in Dauphin County since 2016, but she was suspended without pay in mid-November 2023.
Former judge Sonya McKnight (pictured in her mugshot) was convicted on Wednesday of attempting to kill her former partner, Michael McCoy, in the early hours of February 10, 2024
The Judicial Conduct Board, which investigates and charges misconduct cases against Pennsylvania judges, alleged in a September filing that McKnight violated judicial probation from a previous misconduct case centered on her actions regarding a 2020 traffic stop involving her son.
She was acquitted of criminal charges in that matter.
McKnight was not charged when she shot her estranged husband in 2019 after inviting him over to help her move furniture, Pennlive.com reported.
Prosecutors didn’t charge her, citing self-defense.
