Freeway Shooter Convicted of Lesser Charges

An unemployed Sylmar carpenter who shot at a car on the Golden State Freeway last July after a tailgating incident was acquitted Friday of attempted murder but convicted of two lesser charges.

A jury deliberated for three days before finding Lewis L. Meeks guilty of one count each of assault with a deadly weapon and firing at an occupied vehicle. San Fernando Superior Court Judge Howard J. Schwab set sentencing for March 11. Meeks could receive up to seven years and eight months in prison.

Meeks, 32, had been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count each of assault with a deadly weapon and shooting at an occupied vehicle, which carried a maximum penalty of life in prison without possibility of parole.

Jury foreman Annette C. George, 31, an insurance claims adjuster, said nearly half the panel was “leaning toward second-degree murder” as late as Friday morning. But the jury later agreed that the evidence did not show that Meeks specifically intended to kill Carol Ann Fayne and Michael Fabian Smith when he fired at Fayne’s car on July 20.

Fayne and Smith, the passenger in Fayne’s sports car, testified that Meeks started tailgating them with his pickup truck as they returned from a movie at Universal City. Meeks then fired directly at Fayne without provocation, Smith said, one of the bullets puncturing the back of the car.

Meeks testified that he shot at Fayne’s car because Smith threw beer cans at his truck, yelled obscenities and ripped off the mirror on the driver’s side with a tire iron. Meeks said he aimed at the car’s tire and sought only to scare the occupants into leaving him alone.