A Bath man was sentenced Thursday by Steuben County Court Judge Chauncey J. Watches to several decades to life in state prison after being convicted of multiple felonies, including 12 counts of first-degree attempted murder.
Larry J. Schoonover, 51, was involved in a standoff and shootout with several police agencies more than a year ago in and around a residence at 6664 Roosevelt Ave. in the Town of Bath.
Schoonover was sentenced to concurrent terms of 35 years to life in state prison on each of the 12 counts of Attempted Murder of a Police Officer and a consecutive term of 20 years in state prison plus five years of post-release supervision on the first-degree Criminal Use of a Firearm conviction, along with a $5,000 fine.
Watches made clear from the bench the extreme danger created by the Schoonover’s actions, and his history of similar conduct. Schoonover’s actions exhibited a clear intent to kill and made the sentence imposed both necessary and appropriate, the judge said.
In November a Steuben County jury returned a verdict convicting Schoonover of 32 criminal counts stemming from an Aug. 20-21 2023, incident in which he fired multiple shots during a six-hour stand-off that ended when Schoonover fled his residence, opened fire at close range on two New York State Troopers and was wounded by return fire.
Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker, who tried the case and appeared for the sentencing, was pleased with the result.
“This is an individual who has engaged in similar conduct in the past, at a lesser level,” Baker said. “The system gave him every possible tool to prevent this from happening and he went forward and tried to kill brave men and women from the New York State Police, Steuben County Sheriff’s Office and Bath Village Police Department as they did their jobs, trying to protect his neighbors and even the defendant from harm.”
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Assistant Steuben County Public Defenders Terrance Baxter and Brandy Shafer represented Schoonover, who was remanded to begin serving his sentence.
“The only way to protect our community, and those who help protect it, is to remove Larry Schoonover from it for a very long time and send a message that this type of conduct simply will not be tolerated – and today that happened – justice happened,” Baker said.
This article originally appeared on The Leader: Larry Schoonover sentenced after police shootout in Bath, NY