Woman pleads guilty to shooting rural Pennsylvania prosecutor, sentenced to several years in prison

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This article was published 20/05/2024 (862 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Pennsylvania woman pleaded guilty Monday to shooting a county prosecutor after a confrontation about a property transfer and was sentenced to several years in prison.

Porice Diamond Mincy pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for shooting Cameron County District Attorney Paul J. Malizia in the leg at Malizia’s law office last June.

The 32-year-old Brookville woman was sentenced to four to eight years in prison. Malizia was released from a hospital the day he was shot.

Attorney General Michelle Henry, whose office prosecuted Mincy, called it a “brazen act of violence,” and noted Malizia has remained in office since the attack.

Henry’s office said in a statement that Mincy showed up without an appointment at Malizia’s office in rural Emporium, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) east of Erie, and made some sort of demands concerning a property transfer, a matter he handled as a private practice lawyer, not as district attorney.

Mincy “became belligerent,” Henry’s office said, and shot him in the leg before leaving in a vehicle. She was arrested shortly afterward.

Her lawyer, Lonny Fish, said Monday that the other charges against her were dismissed.

“She showed up in the office, she wasn’t happy with the answers that the secretary gave,” Fish said. “So she went and trashed one of the other offices, and then he approached her in the waiting room. And he hit her. To be honest, I think he was probably within his rights to do that — she was a trespasser.”

Fish said Mincy did not have a license to carry a concealed weapon “so she was going to, most likely, be convicted of that, regardless.”

He described Mincy as a mother of small children who had not been in trouble before. She had moved to the area from New York and was home schooling her kids.

Malizia said in a phone interview Monday that after Mincy confronted his office worker and threw office material on the ground, she sucker punched him, breaking his nose. He said he took a swing at her but missed.

Fish produced a cellphone video Mincy that recorded that he argued shows Malizia did actually punch Mincy.

Malizia, currently 70 years old and in his fourth term in office, said he grabbed Mincy around the waist and tried to get her down some stairs and out of the office.

“She stopped for a second and she turned her head and bit me on the thigh, on my left thigh,” he said. The bite did not tear through his jeans but was strong enough that it caused a wound.

After that, she pulled a .25 caliber automatic handgun out of, he thinks, a fanny pack, and shot him in the other leg, Malizia said. The barrel was against his leg and the bullet passed through the outside of his leg, ricocheted off a wall and landed about 35 feet (11 meters) down a hallway.

Malizia was treated at a hospital and released that night and did not miss any work as a result.

Mincy was upset about which names had been put on a deed when ownership was transferred, Malizia said.

“I wish her the best of luck,” Malizia said. “I mean that very sincerely.”