An Auburn man who became angry at a process server with eviction papers Wednesday flew into a rage and shot the woman, shattered her car window and threw rocks and mud into her vehicle. He also reached inside her car and rubbed the mud into her face. He was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and vandalism. He posted $25,000 bail and was released late Wednesday.
The girlfriend of Nicolas Mark Stenberg, 30, called the Placer County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday at 9:26 a.m. to report that a woman had come to their Mount Vernon Road home and had “maced her boyfriend.” Responding deputies found Stenberg there with red, watery eyes, consistent with exposure to pepper spray. Firefighters responded to the home and treated him. He told deputies that an unknown female came to the house asking where his girlfriend was and he confronted her for trespassing. He said she “maced” him in the face “for unknown reasons” and he went berserk,throwing mud and rocks at her car. He said he may also have broken her car window when he threw an airsoft gun, which he had retrieved from his garage, at her car. He never mentioned firing the gun at the woman.
Around that same time, Sheriff’s dispatch received a call from a woman who stated she had been involved in an incident at that address and would return there to speak with deputies.
As soon as deputies saw the woman, they called for an ambulance as the woman had multiple lacerations 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 showed up at his house to serve papers to Stenberg’s girlfriend, he told her to leave. She drove off, parked down the street and waited for Stenberg to leave his property. He did so a short time later, so the process server returned to the house, hoping to serve papers to the girlfriend.
The girlfriend had apparently called Stenberg to tell him the woman had returned, so he immediately returned home. When the woman saw him, she started walking toward her car. She told deputies that she heard a garage door open and that Stenberg emerged from the garage holding what appeared to be a rifle, and was actually an AK-47-style airsoft rifle. As she headed to her car, and while she sat in the car, she was shot approximately 20 times, including shots around her eye, face and chest. As she sat in her car, she sprayed him with her pepper spray through her open window.
The suspect used the butt of the gun to smash the driver’s window. Stenberg then threw rocks and mud at and into the car, then reached inside the car and smeared the mud all over the woman’s face. The woman was able to put the car in reverse and backed into the man’s trailer. She drove off and contacted the Sheriff’s Office. Stenberg was arrested and booked at the Placer County Jail.
Before deputies left the scene, they served Stenberg’s girlfriend with the eviction papers. The process server was treated at a local hospital and released.
