Meth user who shot self in scrotum trying to rescue neigbor from imaginary 'mexicans' sentenced to prison

WENATCHEE, Wash. — A methamphetamine user who shot himself in the scrotum as he fought off hallucinatory “Mexicans” received a 30-month prison sentence for drug and weapons charges.

Martin Eugene Hoyer, 48, was sentenced Nov. 23 in Chelan County Superior Court after pleading guilty to charges of meth possession and unlawful possession of a firearm. Hoyer has previous criminal convictions, and so was barred from owning the Taurus revolver with which he wounded himself.

With Hoyer’s plea, Judge T.W.“Chip” Small dismissed original charges of assault and harassment brought after the Sept. 13 incident, in which Hoyer allegedly threatened a neighbor with the gun in his South Cove Avenue apartment complex.

Hoyer, who admitted smoking meth for two consecutive days before his arrest, told investigators he listened through an air vent as “a bunch of Mexicans and white guys” plotted with his next-door neighbor to rob him. The neighbor told police Hoyer stood outside her apartment and threatened to shoot her, then returned to his own apartment.

Hoyer told Wenatchee police he saw “Mexicans in the trees” waiting to attack him outside his apartment building, and said two more “Mexicans” went to a second neighbor’s apartment downstairs. He went to the downstairs neighbor’s apartment with the pistol in his waistband to “save” her from the “Mexicans.”

The firearm went off when he tried to kick the door in. The .45-caliber bullet lodged in Hoyer’s scrotal region after ricocheting off his hip joint, and did not cause life-threatening injury.

Hoyer has two prior convictions for theft, one for cocaine possession, one for attempted drug sale and one for first-degree armed robbery. Only the last offense counted under state law toward setting his sentence, which could have been as little as two years and as much as 34 months.