Boulder man accused of threatening woman with gun for shining car headlights into apartment takes plea deal

A Boulder man who reportedly threatened a woman with a gun because she was shining her vehicle’s headlights into his bedroom has taken a plea deal and has received a deferred sentence.

Mark Zachariah Eirikis, 32, pleaded guilty to felony menacing in Boulder District Court on Friday and was given an 18-month deferred sentence, according to court records.

A deferred sentence means that if Eirikis can complete the terms of his sentence, including 24 hours of community service, and avoid any new criminal cases during those 18 months, his guilty plea will be withdrawn.

According to an arrest affidavit, a woman told police she parked her car in its assigned spot at her Boulder apartment complex on Jan. 19 and left the car running with the headlights on while she was scrolling through her phone. She said a man, later identified by police as Eirikis, knocked on her closed window “very aggressively.”

The woman did not roll down the window and told Eirikis she would call police, at which point he sad, “oh, you want to play it like that,” and took out a pistol and pointed it at her.

Police found Eirikis in one of the apartment units in front of the woman’s parking stall, and he asked if the woman was “making up a story” about him. He told police he was having an ongoing issue with her headlights shining into his window late at night, but said he did not have a gun with him when he knocked on the window.

Eirikis initially said his gun was in storage, then acknowledged it was in his apartment but he didn’t know exactly where it was. He gave police permission to search the apartment, and an officer found a loaded gun in an open night stand compartment next to his bed that matched the description the woman had given of the pistol pointed at her.

When an officer said he had trouble believing Eirikis didn’t know where the gun was because it was in plain view and stored somewhere easy to access, Eirikis admitted he had “panicked” when asked about it by police.

Eirikis stated that after he “threatened” the woman the other day, he needed to know where the gun was in case he needed to use it.