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CHRIS TISCHFor Louis S. Mevec, the weapon he hid for his boys' protection leads to tragedy, and a verdict of negligence.
LARGO - Louis S. Mevec's decision to store his loaded .357 Magnum under his living room sofa has proved costly.
It cost a 12-year-old boy his life. It forced Mevec's 14-year-old son into a treatment center for juvenile offenders. It prompted prosecutors to summon that child to the stand Wednesday to provide testimony hurtful to his father.
And on Wednesday evening, the decision cost Mevec his freedom.
After less than two hours of deliberations, jurors convicted Mevec of felony culpable negligence in the Sept. 5 shooting death of Sean Caroline.
Just five days before Father's Day, Mevec learned he likely will have to be a father to his two sons from behind bars, as Judge Brandt Downey immediately remanded him to the Pinellas County Jail.
Mevec, 53, faces six years and four months in prison, though his attorney plans to argue for a lesser sentence.
Downey set sentencing for Mevec, a retired firefighter with no criminal history, for July 16.
Sean's parents said the conviction will launch their crusade for a state law that requires gun owners to use a trigger lock on their firearms. They envision the law named after their son.
"I don't want any parent to feel how I feel or to be in Mr. Mevec's shoes," said his mother, Jeanne Caroline.
Mevec said he stored the loaded gun under his sofa for protection. He didn't feel his sons would find it or even go looking for it.
But his oldest son, who also is named Louis, found it last summer while searching for the television remote control. He slid the gun back under the couch, but brought it back out in August to show some friends, according to court testimony.
About two weeks later, Louis and a group of boys, including Louis' 11-year-old brother and Sean Caroline, skipped school and headed to the Mevec apartment. After watching television and horsing around, Louis took the gun out.
Louis emptied the gun of its six bullets, then pointed it at Sean and pulled the trigger. Sean was scared and ran to hide.
"He was pointing it at Sean and dry firing," testified Blake Boyer, 12, one of the boys in the apartment.
After 10 to 15 minutes, Louis reloaded the gun and put it back under the couch. But a while later, his younger brother, Martin, got the gun out again. Louis put it back, but later took it out a third time.
As Louis unloaded the gun in his bedroom, the other kids started horsing around in the kitchen. Louis, who was not supposed to have friends over when his father wasn't home, ran out and told them not to mess anything up lest his father discover signs they were there. Sean was in the bedroom playing a video game at the time.
When Louis returned to his bedroom, he believed he had taken all six bullets out of the revolver. He failed to notice there were only five rounds on the table in his bedroom.
As Sean played the video game, Louis pointed the gun at his head and began pulling the trigger. In the living room, Boyer heard the clicks.
"I heard two dry fires and then a big boom," Boyer said.
The shot hit Sean in the head, killing him instantly. Louis called 911.
In October, Louis admitted guilt in juvenile court to a manslaughter charge. He was sentenced to a boys village in San Antonio, Fla. He was released in May and moved back in with his father and brother, who still lived in the apartment.
In what prosecutors knew would be tough testimony, they summoned Louis to the stand Wednesday morning. The gentle-looking boy with a round face and dark eyes told jurors what happened that day, often in a voice so soft Downey had to ask him to talk more loudly.
Mevec also took the stand, saying he never told his sons where the gun was kept or anticipated they would ever find it. He had warned them never to touch a gun.
"I didn't believe they would go looking for it or they would accidentally find it," he said.
Prosecutor Bill Loughery on cross-examination asked Mevec if the gun was placed in a spot where his sons could reach it.
Mevec acknowledged they could.
Loughery also pointed out that Mevec had a safe in his home where he could have stored the gun, and that at one time he had used trigger locks.
Upon redirect, defense attorney Debora Moss quickly asked Mevec if he put the gun under the sofa to hide it from the children. Mevec said he did.
But Loughery then shot up and asked: "Mr. Mevec, were you wrong?"
He answered: "In retrospect, yes, I was."
In closing arguments, Moss told jurors Mevec is a good father who enforced strict rules. She suggested Mevec had a Second Amendment right to keep the gun close to him in the event of a break-in.
"If we believe in the right to have a firearm to protect oneself in the house, you might as well not have one if it's kept in a safe," she argued.
But prosecutor Doug Ellis in his closing argument described the loaded gun as a "ticking time bomb waiting to go off." He said Mevec was negligent in keeping a loaded gun in such easy reach.
"If he had done what he should have done, none of us would be here," Ellis said, adding: "I take that back. One person would be here: Sean Caroline."
After the verdict, Mevec's youngest son sat in the courtroom with his head in his hands. Moss said Mevec's boys probably will live with family, perhaps their mother, who lives in New York.
"I consider it to be a punishment for his kids," Moss said of the verdict.
But Sean's parents said the case had to send a message to other parents that there are consequences for those who don't safeguard their guns around children. They plan to devote their time now to getting gun safety laws enacted in Sean's name.
"Now I have a purpose," his mother said. "I want my son's name to be in something."