West Jordan • "Pure crap."

That’s what 3rd District Judge Mark Kouris called Reginald Campos’ insistence he fired in self-defense at a fellow neighborhood watch advocate during a confrontation on a Bluffdale street last year.

His voice rising, Kouris also scolded Campos for expressing no sympathy for the plight of his victim, 37-year-old David Serbeck, who is paralyzed from the chest down because of the shooting.

"I can’t wrap my head around it," Kouris told Campos. "You have absolutely no contrition for any part of this."

Saying Campos left him "no choice," the judge sentenced the 44-year-old accountant to the maximum — back-to-back prison terms of three years to life and zero to five years.

A 3rd District Court jury in July convicted Campos of first-degree felony attempted murder and two counts of third-degree felony aggravated assault.

Kouris on Thursday merged one of the aggravated assault counts with the attempted murder count, on the theory that Campos pointing a gun at Serbeck and subsequently shooting Serbeck were part of one crime.

The second aggravated assault count pertains to Serbeck’s passenger, Perry Farms subdivision homeowners association president Troy Peterson, who was with him the night of July 22, 2009, as they patrolled the neighborhood.

The shooting apparently occurred because of a misunderstanding.

While on patrol, Serbeck and Peterson had at one point followed what they believed was a suspicious vehicle, unaware it was driven by Campos’ teenage daughter, who was with three girlfriends.

The girls called Campos, who drove out and followed them home. He then told his daughter to go with him in search of the SUV.

When Campos spotted Serbeck’s SUV, he pulled in front, forced it to stop and jumped out waving a gun and screaming about someone following his daughter, according to Serbeck’s testimony.

Campos — who did not take the witness stand — had told police he fired after he heard Serbeck rack his pistol and saw him raise the weapon.

But Serbeck testified he tried to reason with Campos and that he had placed his gun on the ground and kicked it away when Campos began shooting.

Defense attorney Rebecca Skordas called the shooting the result of "a perfect storm. I can’t imagine this set of events ever occurring again."

Skordas insisted Campos — who has no prior criminal record — would never again pose a danger to society. Kouris denied her request to reduce Campos’ sentence for attempted murder by one degree.