An Auburn-area man is in jail accused of shooting a process server with an airsoft rifle, smashing the window of the woman's vehicle with the butt of the gun and rubbing mud on her face.
The Placer County Sheriff's office received a call about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday from 30-year-old Nicolas Mark Stenberg's girlfriend. She reported that a woman had come to their Mount Vernon Road home and had "maced" her boyfriend.
Deputies arrived to find Stenberg with red, watery eyes, consistent with exposure to pepper spray, and firefighters responded to treat him.
Stenberg told deputies that a woman he did not know came to the house asking where his girlfriend was and he confronted her for trespassing, according to a Sheriff's Office news release. He said she "maced" him "for unknown reasons" and he went berserk, throwing rocks and mud at her car. Stenberg said he also might have broken her car window when he threw an airsoft gun, which he had retrieved from the garage, at her vehicle. Authorities said he did not mention firing the gun at the woman.
About the same time, the sheriff's dispatch center received a call from a woman who said she had been involved in an incident at the Mount Vernon Road address and would return to speak with deputies.
When deputies saw the woman, they called an ambulance, reporting that she had numerous cuts to her face and body.
She told deputies that she had served eviction papers to Stenberg the night before, at a different location, without incident. When she arrived at his house to serve papers to his girlfriend, he told her to leave.
The woman said she drove off, parked down the street and waited for Stenberg to leave his property. When he left a short time later, the woman returned to the house, hoping to serve papers to the girlfriend.
The girlfriend apparently called Stenberg to tell him that the woman had returned, and he immediately came back to the home.
When the woman saw him, she started walking toward her car. She told deputies that she heard a garage door open and Stenberg emerged from the garage holding what appeared to be a rifle, but proved to be an AK-47-style airsoft rifle.
Authorities said the woman was shot approximately 20 times as she headed to her car and as she sat in the vehicle. The shots struck her around the eye, face and chest.
As she sat in her car, she sprayed Stenberg with pepper spray through the open window.
She said Stenberg used the butt of the gun to smash the driver's window, then threw rocks and mud at and into the car. He also allegedly reached inside the car and smeared mud all over the woman's face.
The woman put the car in reverse and backed into Stenberg's trailer, then drove off and called the Sheriff's Office.
Stenberg was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and booked into Placer County Jail.
The process server was treated at a local hospital and released.
Before deputies left the Mount Vernon Road site, they served Stenberg's girlfriend with the eviction papers.
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