Ex-Fresno City Council staffer jailed after conviction on more domestic violence felonies
Daniel Gai, a former staffer for Councilmember Garry Bredefeld, was found guilty Monday of two counts of criminal threats stemming from a 2019 domestic violence incident.
The 44-year-old Gai was charged with assaulting two women after returning home intoxicated from an event. He pleaded no contest to one count of committing corporal injury on spouse or cohabitant, three counts of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, and one count of child endangerment.
Gai also faced two counts of criminal threats that were challenged by his attorney Eric Schweitzer. He argued that his client’s perception of reality was severely impaired the night of May 16, 2019. It’s possible, Schweitzer said, that someone slipped a drug in his drink.
Rather than have a jury hear Gai’s case, Schweitzer relied on Judge Jeffrey Hamilton to decide Gai’s fate on the felony criminal threat charges.
Schweitzer said Gai may have had eight to 10 drinks that night, including a clear drink that was possibly spiked. When he arrived at his house, his “perception and judgment were both severely impaired” so much so that he believed he was seeing shadows, not people.
“The circumstances indicate that Mr. Gai was perhaps ‘slipping in and out’ of coming to his senses,” Schweitzer said in his closing brief.
Prosecutor Heather Spurling said it was clear Gai knew what he was doing that night, including choking his fiance until she nearly passed out and also choking her mother.
Spurling described Gai’s actions that night as a vicious attack by someone who was consumed by anger and rage. Gai became violent after the victim told him he couldn’t see their child because he was drunk. He then lunged at her and began choking her, according to a police report.
Spurling said the victim was turning blue and her eyes were rolling back into her head when her mother struck Gai in the back and his head several times with a hammer to get him off of her.
“Yes, she struck the defendant,” Spurling said. “But she did it to save her daughter’s life.”
Hamilton said he was confused by Gai’s violent actions, given his lack of a violent past. But the judge also was not convinced Gai didn’t have a grip on reality the day of the incident.
“The court finds it inexplicable as to why Mr. Gai chose to do the things he did,” the judge said. “But to say he was in a state of black-out intoxication is not a reasonable explanation. I find the defendant guilty on those two counts.”
Gai was taken into custody after the judge’s verdict and sent to the Fresno County jail. He will be sentenced on Oct. 8 in Dept. 54.
Gai resigned from his position in Bredefeld’s office earlier this month after he pleaded no contest to five felonies related to a 2019 domestic violence incident.
Last week, Gai was facing up to 10 years in prison on the five initial felonies he pleaded no contest to. With the additional charges he was convicted of Monday, the maximum punishment for him could be 11 years and four months in prison.
Monday’s conviction comes days after an argument erupted in Fresno City Council chambers among council members over the case.
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This story was originally published September 20, 2021 at 11:45 AM.
