Updated Thursday, Jan. 22 – 3:09 pm
One of two men who beat Bryan Stow in a Dodger Stadium parking lot — leaving the San Francisco Giants fan with permanent brain injuries — pleaded guilty today to a federal weapons charge that could put him behind bars for up to 10 years.
Marvin Norwood entered his plea in Los Angeles to one federal count of being a felon in possession of firearms/ammunition. U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin set May 7 for sentencing.
Norwood’s co-defendant, Louie Sanchez, is set to plead guilty on Jan. 29 to the same charge.
The weapons charge stems from a search at Norwood’s Rialto home before the pair were arrested in July 2011. Investigators said they located firearms, many of them loaded, and live ammunition belonging to Sanchez hidden in an attic.
Norwood, shackled and sporting a bushy beard and shaved head, responded affirmatively more than two-dozen times when asked by the judge if he understood the charge and its implications.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Max Shiner and defense attorney Nadine Hettle both declined comment outside court. Sentencing papers are expected to be filed in late April.
Sanchez, 32, and Norwood, 34, both pleaded guilty in February 2014 to state charges of carrying out the opening-day attack on Stow in 2011 and were sentenced to eight- and four-year prison terms, respectively.
Norwood was taken into federal custody last Feb. 21, a day after he was sentenced in state court.
He had spent eight months in county jail beyond the two years of the four-year sentence he was required to serve as part of a plea deal in the Stow assault and was about to be released before federal authorities pounced.
Authorities said they found about a half-dozen weapons — two semiautomatic rifles and a pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a revolver — along with nearly 70 rounds of ammunition when they searched Norwood’s home in connection with the Stow assault.
Norwood told police that the guns were not his and that he had allowed Sanchez to store them at his residence. Federal authorities, however, said they determined that the weapons were in the possession of and available to both men.
Court records showed both Norwood and Sanchez had prior convictions in San Bernardino before the unprovoked Stow assault at Dodger Stadium on March 31, 2011.
Sanchez was convicted of evading an officer in 2006 and a misdemeanor count of domestic violence in 2003. Norwood was found guilty of felony spousal assault in 2006, the indictment shows.
The weapons and ammunition were recovered from the garage attic crawl space at Norwood’s home, federal prosecutors said.
Both Norwood and Sanchez remain in federal custody.
Stow, now 45, remains severely impaired with permanent brain damage. The father of two and former paramedic spent the first two years after the attack in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities and still requires daily care by his family.
Last July, a civil jury awarded roughly $18 million in damages to Stow. But after a lengthy deliberation, the panel found that only Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, the business entity created by ex-Dodgers owner Frank McCourt when he owned the team, and Stow’s two assailants were liable.
Los Angeles Dodgers LLC will have to pay about $14.1 million of the final judgment. But the panel exonerated McCourt of any culpability in the attack.
