PITTSBURGH (AP) — A federal prison guard has been charged with shooting his own finger in a drunken attempt to remove his wedding ring during an argument with his wife at their northwestern Pennsylvania home, police said.
A criminal complaint said Bradford police were called just before 9 p.m. March 2 and were met by Alfredo Malespini III, 31, who told officers he was “trying to get rid of his wedding ring” and decided to “shoot it off.” The Bradford Era first reported the shooting on Friday.
The gunshot badly mangled Malespini’s finger, but didn’t remove the ring, police said.
At the time of the shooting in Bradford, which is near the New York border about 130 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Malespini was employed as a lieutenant at the Federal Correctional Institution-McKean, a medium security prison a few miles away….
Police have been called to the Malespini residence a “couple times” previously for domestic disputes, but Caskey said he doesn’t believe Malespini had ever been charged with a crime before.
On the day of the shooting, Malespini “had been drinking quite heavily throughout the day and he and his wife had been arguing throughout the day about an affair he had had several months ago,” Caskey said.
Malespini has been charged with disorderly conduct and was cited for firing a weapon within city limits but also is charged with reckless endangerment, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison. That’s because the bullet Malespini fired could have endangered someone else, Caskey said.
“He was out on his back deck, he was outside…the bullet could have been fired in a direct line with neighbor’s houses,” Caskey said.
March 23, 2013 6:12 AM
