A Boston restaurant owner suspected of shooting a gun outside an Italian bakery in the North End in 2023 changed his plea to guilty while in court on Friday, according to media reports.
In Suffolk Superior Court, Monica’s Trattoria owner Patrick Mendoza pleaded guilty to charges of assault and battery attempt with a firearm, armed assault to murder, carrying a loaded firearm without a license, illegal possession of ammunition and carrying a firearm without a license, NBC 10 Boston reported.
He was sentenced to two and a half years in the South Bay House of Corrections, but he will be released in eight months due to 10 months already spent in jail, WCVB-TV reported. Were he to violate his terms of probation, he would serve the full time of his prison sentence.
Mendoza was arrested on Friday, July 21, 2023, in connection with the shooting outside Modern Pastry, located at 257 Hanover Street, around 11:10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, Boston police said.
A man standing outside Modern Pastry at the time said Mendoza rode by him on a bicycle, yelled obscenities at him, pulled out a gun and fired two times in his direction, The Boston Globe reported citing a police report.
No one was injured in the shooting, but one of Modern’s windows was damaged by the gunfire, the Globe added.
Last month, Mendoza was arrested on a warrant after police said he cut off an electronic monitoring device he had been ordered to wear in connection with the 2023 shooting. He told police that he took the device off because he was “tired and sick of it,” according to an arrest report obtained by MassLive.
While he was being booked, Mendoza told officers he was “definitely going to kill somebody,” according to the report. He had been “going through it” and “exhibiting erratic behavior,” and he was “extremely stressed about the criminal case pending against him,” the report read.
