Former employee shot Anchorage lawyer before he was shot by police, charges say

A former employee shot an Anchorage lawyer before he was then shot by police outside a Government Hill home early Wednesday, charges filed in the case said.

Trevor Stefano, 38, was charged with attempted murder, first- and third-degree assault and misconduct involving weapons in the shooting.

Police responded to a home on the 700 block of Hollywood Drive just before 6 a.m. Wednesday on multiple 911 calls reporting gunfire, Detective Troy Clark wrote in a criminal complaint included with the charges. An attorney lived at the home and also used the space as his law office.

A woman who described herself as a friend of the attorney was staying there when they heard shots being fired at the home, the charges said. The attorney and the woman both called 911 from separate areas of the home, police Chief Sean Case said during a news conference Wednesday.

The woman initially believed she may have been grazed by a bullet or wounded, but she did not require medical treatment, Case said.

When officers arrived, they located a man, later identified as Stefano, breaking windows on the back of the home with a pistol, the complaint said. He racked the slide before dropping the weapon and running toward the front of the home, the complaint said. He had another pistol with him, it said.

The attorney at that point walked out the front door of his home and Stefano shot him several times, the complaint said.

The officers in turn shot and wounded Stefano. Both he and the attorney were brought to a hospital and underwent surgery, the complaint said.

Detectives interviewed a woman who said she had received a ride to the area from Stefano, who said he would bring her to a friend’s home even though she did not know him, the charges said. They drove for several hours, and she said Stefano said he was going to a house to shoot someone, according to the charges.

At the home, he yelled a woman’s name and told her to come outside, the complaint said. The woman he was looking for wasn’t at the home but had briefly dated Stefano and previously worked for the attorney, the complaint said. That woman told police that Stefano had been “stalking her and showing up at her new place of employment,” the complaint said. “She said he has threatened to hurt her, her family, her kids and even talked about ‘shooting up’ the people she works with,” Clark wrote in the complaint.

Charges were filed against Stefano on Thursday.

He was on parole for a second-degree murder conviction tied to a 2006 killing. News articles covering the case at the time reported that Stefano shot another man inside a Spenard trailer in a robbery over OxyContin while the man’s family was present.

Stefano is the second person to be shot by police so far this year. Less than 24 hours before this shooting, police shot and wounded a man suspected to be involved in a robbery in Midtown.

Anchorage police shot eight people last year, killing five.