Gian Piscione, right, with his stepfather, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, left, before his sentencing in court yesterday. He admitted in a plea agreement to firing a shotgun into the trunk of a Lexus out of jealousy over a girlfriend.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Gian Piscione, 20, stepson of Rhode Island Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, yesterday was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment for firing a “deer slug” from a shotgun into the rear of a car in which two men were seated.

Piscione was enraged that his girlfriend was hanging around with other men, so he wielded the shotgun, according to the charges against him. But C. Leonard O’Brien, one of his lawyers, said yesterday in Superior Court that Piscione only meant to scare the men.

“I am very sorry for what I did,” Piscione told Superior Judge Robert D. Krause. “I know it was stupid. … I’m not the stupid kid I used to be.”

Over the past eight to nine months, Piscione, who lives with his mother and stepfather at 5 Modesta St., North Providence, said he has learned that he has people who love him and that he does not want to lose that by misbehaving again.

After Krause imposed sentence, Piscione’s mother, Laurie Mollis, dabbed her eyes with a tissue or hankie, and Piscione quickly was handcuffed for his trip to the Adult Correctional Institutions. Secretary Mollis and friends and family gathered around for a brief discussion with his stepson’s lawyers in the courtroom.

Secretary Mollis later told news reporters on the steps of the Benefit Street courthouse that it is fortunate that nobody was hurt in the incident, which occurred Jan. 3, the day after he was formally inaugurated as secretary of state. Mollis resigned as mayor of North Providence in order to take the elective state office.

“Gian has just made amazing progress over the past nine months,” since the crime, he commented. Mollis took one question from a reporter — he said that he hopes his stepson is granted work release at the ACI — and then refused additional questions. Mollis said he needed to return to his family immediately.

In July, Piscione pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon, discharging a firearm while committing a crime of violence and possession of marijuana. In a plea agreement with Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, Piscione acknowledged that he would be subject to maximum prison time of four years.

When Special Assistant Attorney General James F. Dube came into court yesterday, Dube asked for a 10-year prison term on the felony assault charge, with only three years to serve. He also asked that Piscione be ordered to pay $1,000 restitution for the uninsured portion of the damage to the car and to have no contact with the two men.

In seeking to justify the recommended sentence, Dube described Piscione’s criminal record, which includes another case involving a shotgun, in Johnston on Aug. 8, 2006. Piscione allegedly pointed a shotgun at two individuals outside a Dunkin’ Donuts, the prosecutor said. Piscione pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct.

On Jan. 3, according to Dube and case records, Piscione confronted his girlfriend and two men in a car in the vicinity of Smith Street and Third Avenue in North Providence. The girlfriend got out of the car and they quarreled, and then Piscione went to his Jeep, returned with the shotgun, fired once into the ground and then a second time, into the car.

“By a great stroke of luck,” the second slug hit a strut and did not strike one of the men, who were still in the car, Dube said.

Piscione asked through one of his lawyers, Lise J. Gescheidt, that he be sentenced to community service rather than prison and ordered to pay restitution. If the judge imposed prison time, Piscione asked that he also order corrections officials to grant him immediate work release.

His lawyers said Piscione suffers from insecurity — his father virtually abandoned him and his mother when he was young, they said — and that he has been hobbled in school by attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities.

Despite the hard knocks, they said, he graduated high school, has been working steadily loading trucks, has been taking steps to attend college, has had counseling for drug use and anger management, has stopped smoking marijuana and has done community service.

“He has gone from [being] a child to becoming a man,” Gescheidt said.

Krause declared, “Anger, jealousy and a loaded gun are a volatile combination, and it has serious consequences.” Piscione is guilty of some “nefarious” misconduct as well as some “creditable” conduct, he said, adding that the defendant had corrected his misconduct only since having been charged in the shooting.

Krause sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment, with 14 months to serve, on the assault charge and to a 10-year suspended sentence, with probation, on the firearm charge. By law, the latter sentence must apply consecutively to the term for the assault charge.

That means that law enforcement and the courts will have a hold on Piscione for a total of 15 years, regardless of whether he wins parole or other early release from the 14-month term. If he runs afoul of the law again, he could return to prison as a violator of probation, the suspended sentences or parole and forced to serve whatever time remains from the 15 years.

For a case such as Piscione’s, a prisoner generally is eligible to apply for parole after serving one-third of the sentence, or one-third of the 14 months, according to Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Lynch.

Krause also sentenced Piscione to a one-year suspended sentence, with probation, on the marijuana charge. That would run concurrent to the assault sentence. The judge ordered the restitution but apparently held in abeyance the requested no-contact orders.

He refused to order work release, saying that issue is best left to the people who run the ACI.

gsmith@projo.com