Darryl Montague said he had one lingering question for the person who shot him three times — twice in the face — more than five years ago as he provided her firearms instruction at his facility in Westford.
“Why?” he asked. “Why? Why? Why?”
Montague, who lives in Westford, spoke Friday at length in a federal court sentencing hearing in Burlington for Veronica Lewis, his firearms training student turned attacker.
He told the judge that, because of the shooting, he is now disabled and has many continuing health problems, including difficulty with his balance and memory.
“This, your honor, was no accident,” Montague told the court. “This was thought out. She left me for dead.”
Lewis, who was previously declared insane at the time of the shooting, also spoke at the hearing Friday, apologizing for her actions.
“I am so, so sorry for hurting Mr. Montague,” Lewis said via video from the jail where she is being held. “Listening to Mr. Montague today in court and, you know, reading the statements, it really crushes my heart how much I’ve hurt him.”
Montague was a firearms instructor and operated Vermont Target Sports in Westford when he was shot twice in the face and once in the abdomen as he was giving Lewis a lesson. He spent a year at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, healing from his injuries.
The complex case has worked its way in and out of courts since the shooting took place June 29, 2015, and at one time a county prosecutor dismissed charges against Lewis over her mental health at the time of shooting.
The case was revived shortly after by federal prosecutors, who brought firearms charges against her. Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan made the rare move of stepping into a matter that had previously been handled by a county state’s attorney and charged Lewis with attempted murder in state court.
Moments after Montague spoke about the devastating impact the shooting has had on his life, Lewis faced sentencing Friday as part of a complicated plea deal worked out among her attorneys and prosecutors in both state and federal courts.
Lewis was sentenced Friday on federal firearms charges stemming from her taking Montague’s gun and ammunition at the time of the shooting.
She is set to be sentenced Tuesday in state court in Burlington on the charge of second-degree attempted murder in connection with turning the weapon on Montague and shooting him three times.
On the federal firearms charges, Judge Christina Reiss accepted a plea agreement that called for six years behind bars for Lewis.
In court Tuesday on the state’s attempted murder charge, a plea deal sets a sentence of 20 years to life in prison, with all but 10 years of that suspended, resulting in a 10-year prison term. Lewis would be on probation for 40 years after she got out of prison, with several conditions, including mental health treatment, if required.
The federal and state sentences will be served at the same time.
Vermont Acting U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ophardt, who prosecuted the federal charges against Lewis, called the case one of the most difficult he’s ever had to handle. He said the plea deal in the federal matter balanced many factors, including a possible insanity defense.
“The government is confident that, if it went to trial, we would prevail against an insanity defense,” he said, though that would have come with some risk. “We recognize that that’s a jury’s decision.”
David McColgin, Lewis’ federal public defender, urged the judge Friday to accept the plea deal in the federal case, saying it was in the best interest of his client.
“We have two experts who concluded that Lewis was insane at the time of the offense, and one expert who concluded that she was sane,” he said. “So it would be a battle of the experts, and it would be difficult to predict the outcome.”
Reiss, in accepting the plea deal, said she understood that Montague wanted Lewis to spend much longer in prison.
The judge said, however, that she was sentencing Lewis on the firearms charges, not the attempted murder offense that has been brought in state court. Reiss said the six-year prison term fell within the advisory sentencing guidelines for the firearms offenses.
Reiss said Lewis’ actions were not a “mistake,” and steps she took in the days leading up to the shooting were thorough and well-planned.
After the shooting, according to court filings, Lewis left the scene with the revolver and was taken into custody later that day outside her home in Worcester, still in possession of the gun.
A Vermont State Police investigation revealed that Lewis had received her first firearm instruction from Montague three days before the shooting. At that session, according to court records, she asked several times when she could shoot a gun and whether .22-caliber ammunition could kill a person.
A search of her computer’s browsing history showed that Lewis had visited websites about crime-scene cleanup, prison sentencing, crime statistics, and jails and prisons in Vermont, according to court filings.
Friday’s sentencing in the federal case closes at least one chapter in the long-running legal proceedings against Lewis.
The case against her took a turn in June 2019 when Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George asked the state court judge to dismiss the attempted murder charge against Lewis, saying she couldn’t contest a defense that Lewis was insane when she shot Montague.
George said her office learned of Lewis’ extended mental health diagnoses and psychiatric hospitalizations, and Lewis’ attorney had opinions from psychiatrists who believed she was insane at the time of the shooting.
Donovan, Vermont’s attorney general, reviewed the case, as well as two unrelated murder cases that George had dropped for similar reasons. He has since brought prosecutions in all three, including two murder cases and Lewis’ attempted murder case.
Donovan agreed to review the cases at the urging of Gov. Phil Scott, who expressed concern about the dismissal of charges in such serious cases.
The attorney general faced criticisms that his actions were politically motivated, as he had made the unusual move of inserting himself into cases that had previously been prosecuted by a county state’s attorney.
Federal prosecutors revived court actions against Lewis even before Donovan, filing the firearms charges shortly after learning that she was about to be released to the community.
In federal court Friday, Montague, in asking for a longer prison term for Lewis, said he had no doubt that she knew what she was doing when she shot him at a distance of only 3 feet.
“I’m not really looking for empathy,” he said. “I’m a firm believer of justice. I believe in the system. I believe in equal justice that’s equal to the crime committed.”
Lewis, in addressing the judge, said she never had any “negative or bad” intentions toward Montague.
“He was caught up in my delusions,” she said. “My mind was tricked by the voices in my head.”
Lewis also told the judge, “I know that we’re not a forgiving society, but I would like Mr. Montague and his family to one day forgive me.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Why? Why? Why?’ firearms instructor shot by student asks in court.