Guilty Plea Ends Case of Drunken Rage, Fear : Crime: Man pleads guilty to brutal, terrifying attack on his girlfriend. He was too drunk to later recall it.

By TOM GORMAN

Dec. 31, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A 28-year-old Valley Center horse trainer who had once sought counseling with his girlfriend pleaded guilty Monday to sodomizing her and shooting a potato off her head during an afternoon of terror that left her with a bullet in her hip.

The man, Michael Joseph McSorley, was so drunk Dec. 10 that he had no memory of the events and was willing to accept whatever punishment the victim thought he deserved, said his defense attorney, Elizabeth Barranco.

Through a plea-bargain agreement with the San Diego County district attorney’s office, McSorley will face a nine-year prison term when he is formally sentenced March 12. Had he been convicted in a trial, he could have faced a maximum of 71 years in prison, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Barber.

Barranco said she will ask to have her client sentenced to the prison at Vacaville, where he can receive psychiatric and alcohol abuse treatment. With good-time credit, McSorley can be released in about 4 1/2 years.

McSorley faced 15 felony counts involving sexual assault, sodomy and assault with a deadly weapon, and all but two were dismissed: forced sodomy and assault with a firearm inflicting great bodily injury.

Barranco and Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Barber said there was very little debate over the facts in the case, because McSorley himself doesn’t remember them and was relying on what his live-in girlfriend of two years told authorities.

The incident began, the woman said, when a client called McSorley, asking him to spend some time with his horse, and the woman responded to the telephone caller that McSorley was too drunk to drive to the client’s ranch.

Her response triggered the outburst by McSorley, who by late afternoon had consumed a case of beer, a bottle of vodka and some cognac.

The unidentified 22-year-old woman said McSorley forced her to orally copulate him, beat her up, sodomized her, raped her, and then made her lie on the floor while he shot a rifle over her head four times.

He forced her to place a potato on her head and shot it off, then had her hold a small, pumpkin-like gourd in her hand, which he shot into bits.

Next he turned his back to her and unloaded the rifle. Without her knowing it was unloaded, he placed the barrel in her mouth and squeezed the trigger.

Finally, while lying on the floor, he waved the gun about, and it fired again, the bullet going through her hand and entering her hip, where it remains.

At one point during the assault, the woman fled the house naked, only to be caught by McSorley and forced back inside, Barranco said.

It was after he shot her, Barranco said, that McSorley “suddenly sobered up.” He tried to stop the bleeding, then put his girlfriend in the car--only to crash into a row of mailboxes. Passers-by took the woman to the local fire station; she then was taken to Palomar Medical Center. McSorley then turned himself in, Barranco said.

“He is the most remorseful client I have ever represented in my entire career,” she said. “He’s been crying over it--not for his own predicament, but he feels horrible for his girlfriend. He said, ‘I’ve messed up her life, and whatever she wants with my life, she can have.’ ”

Barber met with McSorley in open court Monday--when he was to have his preliminary hearing before Vista Municipal Court Judge William Draper--and offered him her proposed settlement for prison time.

Barber said she asked his girlfriend how much prison time she felt he should face, “and she was very candid. She said, ‘I want him to do five to 10 years in jail.’ ”

Barber said the girlfriend agreed with the nine-year prison sentence--even with the understanding that he could be free in half that time.

“She’s not out to get you,” Barber told McSorley. “She certainly doesn’t want you in jail for 71 years.”

Barber said the victim is still recovering from an infection in her shot hand and told McSorley that “her parents aren’t particularly pleased with you.”

Barranco said that, in the couple’s two-year relationship, they had squabbles typical of a married couple for which they jointly sought counseling. There were no other outbursts even approaching one of this nature, Barranco said, and she attributed it to toxic poisoning from the one day’s drinking binge.

“He didn’t remember any of it. He told the sheriff that he had no memories of what happened but that, if that was what she said, it must be true,” Barranco said.