Man handed 99 years, victim gets 'life sentence' in drug

For about two months before his 18th birthday Aaron Assiter began selling small amounts of marijuana and THC cartridges to come up with the money to fix his Jeep Wrangler.

And for that he said he was given a life sentence.

Assiter, 20, sat in in the wheelchair he expects to spend the rest of his life in and told jurors in the 140th District Court about one of his biggest regrets in life: agreeing to sell two, 1 gram THC cartridges for $100 to a stranger who contacted him on Snapchat the night of Aug. 25, 2020, two days after he turned 18.

He arranged to meet the person at the Drug Emporium in the 5100 block of 82nd Street about 1:25 a.m.

But drug deal turned out to be a robbery and one of the robbers shot Assiter in the neck. The bullet struck his spine and shattered, paralyzing him from the chest down.

Bullet fragments still remain in his body, he said. Doctors told him they were too close to his spine and removing them risked further injury.

A jury in the 140th District Court deliberated Thursday for 30 minutes before finding Assister's accused shooter, 24-year-old Luis Munoz, guilty of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony that carries a punishment of five years to life in prison. On Friday, after about 45 minutes of jury deliberation, he was given a 99-year prison sentence. He will have to serve 30 years of his sentence before he is eligible to ask for parole.

The verdict came after a four-day trial.

Munoz is the first of three defendants charged for their roles in the botched robbery.

Tanner Stone, 19, and Rodrick Estrada, 27, are both being held at the Lubbock County Detention Center where they are awaiting trial.

During the trial jurors heard evidence that included Assiter's phone records that showed the person who contacted him was Stone, Munoz's roommate.

Jurors also watched Munoz's interview with Lubbock police Sgt. Jesse Akins during which he admitted to his role in the robbery, saying it was Stone and Estrada's plan to rob Assiter that night.

Munoz told the Akins that Estrada, who was the getaway driver, gave him the silver .38 caliber revolver that he would use to threaten Assiter, while Stone stole Assiter's drugs and money.

At first, Munoz says he shot the gun when he saw Assiter holding a gun. However, he later admitted that he didn't see any weapon before firing.

"I [expletive] up," he could be heard saying.

He said that he, Stone and Estrada drove away after the shooting without taking Assiter's drugs or money.

Responding officers told jurors they found four vape cartridges containing about five grams of THC and about 0.2 of an ounce of marijuana in Assiter's vehicle.

In the police interview, Munoz told the detective that Estrada got rid of the spent shell casing and sold the gun on Facebook. Prosecutors showed jurors a post Estrada made to sell the weapon.

Prosecutor Cassie Nesbitt told jurors in her closing argument that the evidence of Munoz's guilt was overwhelming.

She said Munoz, Stone and Estrada picked Assiter to rob because he was an easy target.

"We do not condone the behavior of Aaron Assister selling drugs," she said. "But he was stupid 18-year-old kid who didn't know what he was getting involved with."

Defense attorney Marvin Williams told jurors they should disregard his client's confession to Lubbock police Sgt. Jesse Akins because he was intoxicated.

"And without that statement they have no case," he said.

He told jurors that Akins should have tested his client's level of intoxication when Munoz told him he'd been drinking before the interview.

He told jurors he believed Akins didn't evaluate his client's condition because it was easier to elicit a confession from Munoz if he was intoxicated.

However, during the interview, Munoz told Akins that he wasn't drunk because he'd only had one beer.

"It takes a lot for me to get drunk," Munoz could be heard saying.

Nesbitt said Munoz didn't appear to be slurring his speech when he answered Akin's questions.

"Everything that Luis told you in that statement is corroborated by the evidence in the case," she said. "It further supports the fact that (his statement) was voluntarily and freely made cause he knew exactly what he was saying."

Prosecutor Jessica Gorman told jurors that Munoz's actions that night met every element of the charge against him.

"There's no such thing as an accident when it comes to a situation like this," she said. "You show up as part of a robbery plan, you point a gun at somebody, that's not an accident, that aggravated robbery."

Stone and Estrada both invoked their Fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination as prosecutors did not offer them testimonial immunity. The court did not compel either co-defendant to testify in the trial.

Meanwhile, Assiter, who faced potential felony charges for possessing the THC cartridges testified without immunity.

Assiter said he began smoking marijuana when he was 16 and his twice a week habit grew to nearly daily use a year later.

At some point, Assiter said he wrecked his Jeep Wrangler when he accidentally struck his mother's vehicle. It would cost about $10,000 to fix his Jeep. So Assiter, who also began working as an apprentice electrician at the time, decided to sell marijuana to save up enough money to repair his Jeep.

He said by then he only used marijuana once a day, and would sell the whatever he didn't consume, mostly to family and friends but made exceptions for friends of friends.

He told jurors that he planned to stop selling marijuana and THC cartridges when he earned his journeyman's license, which he was on the verge of achieving. In the months he sold the drugs, he made about $700, he said.

During his cross examination of Aaron Assiter, Williams, Munoz's defense attorney asked him about his drug selling enterprise and sought the names of the people he sold to and how much he sold.

Williams asked if he realized that the amount of THC he had that night could have resulted in a first-degree felony charge with the same range of punishment as aggravated robbery.

"I mean, I've already got a life sentence with no judge and no jury," Assiter replied.

He said on the night of the shooting, he had just moved into his new house and was visiting a friend in Woodrow when Stone reached out to him on Snapchat asking to buy THC cartridges.

Assiter told jurors he tried asking another friend about Stone but got know response.

However, he said Stone kept messaging him.

"I was ignoring him for a while," Assiter said.

At one point Assiter told Stone, "You straight up sound like a cop" and Stone reportedly replied with a video of him snorting a line of what appeared to be cocaine.

Ultimately, Assiter told jurors he believed Stone was harmless since his marijuana deals at that point had been uneventful.

"I figured he was just a cool kid that really wanted some THC cards or whatever," Assiter said.

He said when he arrived at the Drug Emporium in his rental car, he didn't see any cars and thought Stone was a no-show. However, he saw Stone, sitting against the wall by the entrance of the store.

He stopped his car in the middle of the parking lot and Stone ran up to him, entered the car and made introductions.

Assiter told jurors he asked Stone why he was alone and was told that Stone's friend dropped him off and left to pick up a girl on the north side of town. He said he felt bad for Stone and offered him a ride home once the drug deal was done.

"I didn't want to leave him there," he said.

Assiter said Stone asked him to drive up to the front of the store where he left his bag.

Assiter complied not knowing this was the signal Estrada and Munoz, who were parked at a nearby restaurant, were waiting for to act.

While waiting on Stone to take his things, Assiter said he was on his phone texting his girlfriend at the time. He looked up to see Stone pointing a gun at him.

Assiter said he immediately threw his car in reverse and hits something. He looked up his rear-view mirror and sees two fog lights behind him. It was Estrada who drove up behind him.

"I put my car in drive to try and turn and get out of there," he said. "Cause I saw (Stone) aiming a gun at me. I didn't now what he was going to do."

He said he later learned that Stones gun was actually a pellet gun.

Next thing he knew, he was shot.

"I just hear a bang and feel almost like I got Tazed," he said. "My body 100 percent tensed up and my foot hit the gas."

Assiter said he didn't see who shot him.

Video footage from the Drug Emporium's security camera's showed Assiter's vehicle running into the building's wall while the robbers run away.

Assiter said he could feel a burning pain inside his neck and blood was flowing everywhere. The odor of burnt flesh and the smell of iron from his blood coated the air.

He couldn't move his legs or his left arm, but initially believed he was in shock from being shot.

Unable to drive, his next thought was to call 911. But his said his phone, which was in his lap, fell to the passenger side floorboard when he crashed his car.

With no control in his limbs, Assiter held himself up with his right hand on the steering wheel and closed his eyes.

"I believe I said, 'I guess this is it,'" he said. "I thought, 'Lord, you're calling my name and that's when I drifted off for what I believe was one to two minutes."

Assiter described going into a place of pure peace. Gone was pain in his neck as well as the smell of blood and burning flesh.

"I thought I was completely dead," he said.

He regained consciousness when he felt someone shaking him and telling to wake up. The pain and smells came back and there was more blood than before, pooling on his lap and filling the cup holders of his car.

"I open my eyes and believing that someone found me, saw me," he said. "I was ecstatic that someone just shook me and woke me up."

But he was still alone. His heart sinks for the second time.

His eyes fell on his right hand but it was clutching his phone.

"I was beyond confused," he said.

His right hand still worked and he dialed 911.

"When officers arrived, I told him everything," he said.

He told officers about the marijuana in his backpack in the back seat. In total, officers found about .2 ounces of marijuana and four cartridges that had a total of about five grams of THC.

"Even if they were going to charge me with anything I would have taken it," he said.

When paramedics arrived, he said he realized the numbness in his body was more than shock. He asked them if he was paralyzed.

They said he was.

"(I was in) just complete shock. Devastation; that I can't do any of the things that I loved doing ever again," he said. "I have to change every part of my life; relearn to live every part of my life."

Assiter remembers being wheeled down the halls of University Medical Center to the emergency room where his father, a lieutenant with the Lubbock Fire Department was waiting.

He told jurors he believed his father was the last person he was going to see, and he grabbed him, apologized for how stupid he was and asked him to tell everyone that he loved them.

Assiter remembers waking up after his surgery, not being able to breathe.

His left lung had collapsed and doctors put a tube in to inflate it. The next night, his body went into neurogenic shock, a condition resulting from spinal cord injuries that disrupts the body's blood flow causing his organs to shut down.

"But they brought me back from the (brink of death)," he said.

He spent weeks in intensive care and was only able to feel his right arm.

The severity of his injuries were beyond the capabilities of his doctors at UMC and he was flown to Colorado where he was admitted to a rehabilitation facility that specialized in spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.

It was there that a surgeon from the Mayo Clinic learned of his case and performed an experimental nerve transfer surgery that gave back movement in his left arm.

The months that followed there were it's own hell, Assiter said.

"That's whenever the nerve pain form the bullet started," he said.

A bullet fragment near his neck burned his nerves causing agonizing pain.

"All they could do was hit me with every opiate in the book just to knock me out," he said.

Surgeons operated on him multiple times to remove that bullet fragment.

To this day, he feels a constant pain in his left hand like he's holding it over a lit candle. At times, the pain shoots up, causing him to curl into a ball.

The opiates he was prescribed for the pain nearly killed him so he just goes without them, he said.

However, it was the loneliness that was the hardest part to endure. Assiter's treatments happened in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant he could only see one parent at the time for a very short time.

"I would be alone in the hospital for most of the time, which was rough," he said.

He was released from the hospital at the end of 2020 and began to live a new reality.

"Every aspect of my life changed," he said.

Assiter told jurors that before the shooting, he was athletic. He was a defenseman on his high school football team, ran the 100 meter dash and shot put for the track team and boxed.

His goal of becoming a master electrician is gone, but he now works at a brokerage firm and is studying to obtain a stock broker license.

He also loved the outdoors, hiking and snowboarding.

"I loved it," he said. "I loved snow boarding. It's something I miss more than walking."

Now, he can't dress himself or get into his wheelchair without help.

The worst part is being unable to control his bladder or bowels.

"As a 20-year old urinating yourself out of nowhere - it's awful," he said.

Assiter's father, Brett Assiter, told jurors he used to be jealous of his son's athleticism.

"He made athletic things look so easy," he said.

He described his son as a fun loving, bright and happy person.

"He was super popular," he said. "And I always said he was a stud he was such a stud."

He was also kind.

"He was our sensitive baby," he said. "He always cared so much about people. We used to kid him all the time about being so soft."

Now, the confident, happy person his son used to be is gone.

"He's very much closed off where he did not used to be," he said. "He's very much inside his head where he did not used to be."

Assiter, who has been a firefighter for 25 years, told jurors he's seen countless tragedies on the job. But nothing prepared him for what he saw at UMC when he met his son at the emergency room.

He said based on his experience, he didn't expect his son to live and considers Aaron's survival a miracle.

"I mean that from a father's standpoint but also from a medical standpoint," he said. "There's no explanation why he is still alive."

He told jurors that doctors technically classified his son as a quadriplegic based on the injury to his spine and Aaron should not be able to use his arms.

"I thank God every single day," Assiter said.

Aaron Assiter told jurors he wouldn't wish his condition on any of the co-defendants in the case.

"I would have much rather been pulled over with a kilo of cocaine in the back of my car than this," he said. "I would much rather gotten life in prison than this."