By JIM FITZGERALD
Associated Press

NEW CITY - No one denies that Leo Lewis, enraged at a woman who had accused him of groping her, brought a rifle to court and fired a bullet that whizzed within inches of a judge's head.

The attempted-murder case against Lewis hinges on whether he was aiming to kill the woman - a question jurors took up again Wednesday after failing to reach a verdict on Tuesday.

Lewis, 60, is accused of trying to kill Sarah Bannout, 22, in Sloatsburg Village Court, where he was suing her for the $3,000 he had spent in a successful defense against her sex-abuse claim. Besides attempted murder, he is accused of two gun charges.

Lewis is accused of smuggling the sawed-off semiautomatic rifle into the courtroom - which had no metal detector - in an interoffice envelope on May 7. As his case was called, he stood in the back row of seats and fired once without hitting anyone.

Lewis' lawyer, Barry Weiss, told a Rockland County Court jury Tuesday that his client "had no intent to hurt" Bannout.

"There was intent maybe to show anger, frustration, hostility, to be noticed," Weiss said.

But Assistant District Attorney Louis Valvo told the jurors Tuesday that Lewis was "not shooting at the floor, not shooting at the ceiling." He said Lewis shot straight ahead, at head height, with Bannout directly in front of him.

"What was the defendant's goal? It was to kill Sarah Bannout," Valvo said.

The bullet slammed into Village Judge Hon. Thomas Newman's bench, then ricocheted past his head and into the wall behind him.

Lewis fled after he fired but was captured outside in the parking lot, where he allegedly said, "I should have shot the (expletive)," using a derogatory term for a woman. Later, Lewis signed a statement that said, "Sarah Bannout lied about me touching her. She already ruined my life, and at times, I thought about killing her."

Lewis' wife, Julie Lewis, said after his arrest that he had several forms of cancer. She said she didn't know why he would shoot at Bannout.

"This isn't the man I married," she said. "The accusation from that woman changed him."