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FARMINGTON — Just before being sentenced to prison for shooting his ex-girlfriend's date, Aaron Gaitan said all of his prior convictions could be traced back to his ex.
"So in my defense, I think she's been my only problem," the 37-year-old Layton man told a judge Tuesday at his sentencing hearing. "For years I've been trying to end it, and for some reason (I) just kept coming back and coming back, and I'm so sorry it had to lead all the way up to this in order for me to be free from her."
Davis County deputy district attorney Ben Willoughby was quick to counter, however, that it's "astounding" Gaitan "still has the lack of insight to state that (his ex-girlfriend) was responsible" for not only the shooting, but for him abusing her in 2014 and 2015. Court records indicate that Gaitan pleaded guilty to assaulting her in 2016.
Second District Judge David Williams said he wasn't impressed, either.
"You brought a weapon to a place, pointed that weapon, hit a person with that weapon ... (and) ultimately shot through the window and hit somebody," Williams said. "The victim here is lucky to be alive, and that was nobody's fault but your own."
The judge ordered Gaitan to serve at least three years and up to life in the Utah State Prison. He said he'd recommend that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole give Gaitan credit for time already served, and he issued a no contact order with the victims.
Gaitan pleaded guilty in November to knowing and intentional attempted murder, a first-degree felony, as part of a plea deal. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dismissed four other charges: felony discharge of a firearm, a first-degree felony; use of a firearm by a restricted person, a third-degree felony; assault, a class A misdemeanor; and criminal mischief, a class B misdemeanor.
On Oct. 5, 2021, police responded to a shooting at a Layton home. While officers were en route, they were flagged down by several people in a nearby parking lot where a 35-year-old man was found with a gunshot wound to his leg. The man's vehicle had a bullet hole and a shattered window, police say.
The victim, who was transported to a local hospital, told investigators that he had taken a woman to dinner that night. When he dropped her off at her home and parked in her driveway, Gaitan — whom he did not know — opened the driver's side door and told the victim, "I'm going to kill you," according to charging documents.
Police later learned that Gaitan and the woman had recently broken up after living together.
Gaitan hit the man several times in the head with a gun and also struck the woman when she tried to intervene, the charges state. He then told the woman to go inside the house.
As the victim started to drive away, Gaitan shot at his truck. Concerned for the woman, the man turned his truck around. But as he drove back toward the home, Gaitan "ran up to the passenger's side door and fired a second round, which struck (the victim) in the leg," according to the charges.
Defense attorney Julie George said Tuesday that Gaitan believed the victim was returning to the house to harm him, and that's why he fired.
That's not an excuse for his actions, George said, but Gaitan isn't a danger to the community.
But Willoughby said there's plenty of evidence to show that Gaitan's actions amount to premeditated attempted murder. Gaitan backed his car into a nearby trailer park and waited for his ex-girlfriend and her date to return. "The very minute" they pulled in, he ran at them from the trees. The victim was ultimately shot in the thigh, he said.
"That's how close the defendant came to murder," Willoughby said. "All of this so he could continue to control (his ex-girlfriend)."
