Paso Robles winemaker accepts plea deal for shooting ‘threatening’ neighbor’s golf cart
On the day he was scheduled to begin trial, well-known Paso Robles winemaker Tobin James Shumrick accepted a plea agreement for misdemeanor vandalism related to his long-running dispute with a threatening neighbor.
On Tuesday afternoon, Shumrick, 62, accepted a last-minute offer from the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office prior to jury selection, pleading no contest to vandalism of less than $400.
Two misdemeanor charges of shooting at an occupied motor vehicle and hit-and-run causing property damage were dismissed.
Though prosecutors originally charged Shumrick with two felonies and a misdemeanor, a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge reduced each charge to misdemeanors after hearing testimony from San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office deputies and the alleged victim at a hearing in June.
Under the plea agreement, Shumrick — who owns Tobin James Winery on Union Road in Paso Robles — was given credit for one day served in San Luis Obispo County Jail, will serve no probation and will be required to pay $96 in restitution to neighbor Gabriel Canaday for damage to a truck.
The trial was expected to last a week, according to court records.
Paso Robles winemaker filed restraining orders against victim
Prosecutors filed the case against Shumrick after two separate incidents on Oct. 2 and 3, 2019, in which he fired a single shotgun slug at Canaday’s golf cart as Canaday was allegedly harassing employees in the Tobin James Winery parking lot, according to testimony. The slug hit a back tire and Canaday drove the cart back to his property.
Shumrick was later involved in a fender-bender with Canaday’s parked truck on Canaday’s property the next day.
No one was hurt in either incident.
Court records show that Canaday has a long history of violating restraining orders and failing to appear in court. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman previously said that Canaday had been arrested 18 times between April 2019 and February 2020; 16 of those arrests were for outstanding warrants.
Patrick Fisher, Shumrick’s attorney, said Tuesday afternoon that Shumrick and his employees had been terrorized in the six months leading up to the incident, placing more than 30 calls for service to the Sheriff’s Office and sending several emails to the District Attorney’s Office seeking protection.
“They made numerous reports of Mr. Canaday’s threatening behavior, which included trespassing onto the property almost daily, trying to break into the winery, targeting female employees with intimidation, trying to break into a patron’s RV, and accusing the winery of holding captive and torturing Mr. Canaday’s ex-wife and children in the winery,” Fisher wrote in an email.
At the time of the shooting, Canaday was prohibited from being on the property by a restraining order.
“He has driven recklessly through the workplace and used his own vehicle to trap employees in the parking lot of the workplace,” the restraining order request says. “(Canaday) has expressed that he hears voices of his wife and children on the property, and apparently believes the property is being used as staging ground in a conspiracy against him.”
During Canaday’s testimony in June, Fisher confronted him with with evidence of the behavior, though Canaday described that as “just a misunderstanding.”
“I really didn’t have a lot to go off of on that,” Canaday testified. “I went over there and was assured that wasn’t the case.”
“Mr. Shumrick has always maintained that ... he was left no option but to defend himself and the safety of his employees when he fired one shotgun round at the tire of Mr. Canaday’s golf cart as he barreled toward Mr. Shumrick and his employees,” Fisher said Tuesday. “In offering to dismiss the charge for firing his shotgun, as well as the hit-and-run charge, it is clear that the District Attorney’s Office was ultimately able to see things Mr. Shumrick’s way.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 4:00 PM.
