Man jailed on gun assault charge

SANDPOINT — A Bonner County man who shot his abusive father to death in 2004 was arrested Tuesday for threatening a neighbor with a pistol.

Gregor Dana Firey is charged with aggravated assault. Judge Barbara Buchanan set Firey’s bail at $25,000 on Wednesday and appointed a public defender to represent him, court records show.

A no-contact order has also been entered in the case.

Firey, 42, allegedly pointed a .38-caliber revolver at the 31-year-old neighbor during a verbal dispute north of Priest River, a Bonner County Sheriff deputy’s probable cause affidavit said.

“I killed my father. What makes you think I won’t kill you?” the alleged victim quoted Firey as saying during the confrontation.

Firey was charged with first-degree murder after shooting his 60-year-old father, Ronald, in the abdomen with a knockoff AK-47 assault rifle. The patricide occurred on Nov. 22, 2004.

A judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to support the murder charge and Firey was bound over to stand trial on a count of voluntary manslaughter.

The charge was reduced further to misdemeanor battery because it appeared Gregor Firey was acting in self-defense.

Had the case gone to trial Firey’s defense counsel would have put up evidence that Ronald Firey subjected his son to a lifetime of physical abuse.

Gregor Firey was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $300 in 2006 and the misdemeanor charge was subsequently dismissed after he completed his court-ordered obligations, court documents indicate.