A Pennsylvania judge is accused of shooting her ex-boyfriend in the head while he was sleeping, according to the New York Post, and has been charged with first-degree attempted murder and aggravated assault. A case affidavit states that the incident took place at a Harrisburg home on February 9th, following an attempt by Michael McCoy, the victim, to terminate his one-year relationship with Magisterial District Judge Sonya McKnight.
After McKnight ended their one-year relationship, McCoy, 54, allegedly made “numerous” attempts to get him to move out, according to police reports. After leaving a restaurant on February 9, he told her that he would enlist McKnight’s mother’s assistance to remove her from the house.
”Michael McCoy stated that it was like she finally understood that it was over,” police said. He then went to bed at about 11 p.m. but was awoken by a ”massive head pain” which left him screaming and panicking. His shouts alerted McKnight to his room who asked him, ”Mike, what did you do to yourself?”
She then called 911 to report McCoy’s injury. Police said that during the call she ”could not explain what happened and stated that she was sleeping and heard him screaming.”
Doctors at the hospital said he had suffered a gunshot wound to the right temple that exited his left temple, police said. As a result of the shooting, he was left blind in one eye.
McCoy also told police at the scene and later at the hospital that he did not shoot himself. Police later said that physical evidence showed that the victim had been shot about a foot away and that McKnight tested positive for gunshot residue on her hands within an hour of the shooting. She was arrested on February 15 and charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Since then, she has been removed from her position as Dauphin County’s elected judge, which she had held since 2016. Prior to this, the Court of Judicial Discipline, which hears complaints of misconduct against judges, likewise placed McKnight on indefinite leave without pay.
As of Friday, she remained incarcerated in the Dauphin County Prison with a $300,000 bail.
