DENVER (KDVR) — A Montana man was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for attempted first-degree murder after he allegedly shot at three people sleeping outside a Safeway in Loveland in August 2023.
Aaron Lambertus, 28, pleaded guilty under a plea agreement on Sept. 24 to the single felony charge, in addition to a sentence enhancement of using a handgun during the crime. In return, prosecutors dismissed three further attempted first-degree murder charges, and three further sentence enhancement charges that would have specified Lambertus’ use of a handgun during the crimes.
The case began in August 2023 when Loveland police responded to a Safeway parking lot on a report of a shooting. They learned that two victims were sleeping on the ground and a third person was nearby when someone in an SUV drove by, shot at them, and sped off. One victim was injured in the incident.
The Loveland Police Department began to investigate and learned the SUV was registered to Lambertus. The case led detectives to Bozeman, Montana, to interview Lambertus and a co-defendant, Ayla Osterloth. Both were arrested and extradited to Larimer County for the case, according to prosecutors, who said they learned Osterloth had been driving the SUV during the shooting, while Lambertus pulled the trigger.
In June, Osterloth pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted murder. She was sentenced to four years in the youth offender system with an eight-year suspended sentence in the Department of Corrections.
Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Lambertus to a maximum of 48 years in prison. Prosecutors said in a release that Lambertus told police he was looking to shoot someone “who no one would really care about” and who he believed “wasn’t a contributing member to society.” Prosecutors also told the judge during sentencing that Lambertus had tried to manipulate Osterloth, communicating with her in jail and asking her to take the blame for the shooting.
Lambertus was also sentenced to five years of parole following his prison sentence.
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