Shoshi Emerging From a ‘Dark Bubble’

“I was in a bubble,” Valon Shoshi said yesterday, looking back on the day just over a month ago when he became the subject of a townwide police search after firing a shotgun at his house in Springs. “It was a dark bubble.”

Mr. Shoshi, 29, who was arrested on Oct. 3 and ordered by East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana to seek psychiatric treatment upon his release the next day, was back in court last Thursday. Although he had hoped to return to Kosovo, where he is in the midst of divorce proceedings, Justice Rana told him that he cannot do so.

 “Listen,” she told him, “I set bail at $25,000, and I took your passport from you. If I find out you have left the country, it will not be good for you. You cannot leave the country.”

A court date in Kosovo was put off after he was arrested, and Mr. Shoshi said his Kosovo divorce attorney had told him that he would not be allowed any further delays. He said he is working with his attorney there to set a new final court date.

Mr. Shoshi’s family came to the United States from Kosovo in 1999. Three years ago, he met his future wife, Paulina Nushi, there, moved back, and was married. He returned to the United States earlier this year, but was distraught over the breakup of his marriage, he said.

“I lost all desire to continue,” he wrote last Thursday on his Facebook page. On Oct. 3, Mr. Shoshi fired his gun three times at his house on Gardiner Avenue (his mother suffered minor injuries from debris). He then left in his car, taking the gun with him. His family called police, concerned he would hurt himself, and a three-hour search ensued. He was arraigned the next day on four charges, including reckless endangerment.

“I never wanted to hurt anybody,” he said yesterday, “especially my mother.” He had fired the gun away from her, he said, and then left the house with one shot left. In the moments before he was arrested on Oct. 3, he said, he was on the phone with East Hampton Town Police Capt. Chris Anderson and was driving to turn himself in to the captain when his car was stopped in front of One Stop Market on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton. Armed officers surrounded him. On his Facebook page, Mr. Shoshi wrote that he had prayed that day that “the police will just end my life for me.”

Mr. Shoshi, who turned 29 last Sunday, had been a role model in the larger East Hampton community, a fact Justice Rana pointed to during his arraignment on Oct. 4. He worked as an aide at the John M. Marshall Elementary School and volunteered with the Springs Fire Department and the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, where he was an assistant chief before he left for Kosovo.

“My joy is in helping others,” he said yesterday. “It is what makes me happy.”

Outside the courtroom last Thursday, Mr. Shoshi stood with his many friends and family who had come, as they did when he was first arraigned, to show their support for him.

He said he sees a brighter future ahead, and looks forward to rejoining the community he loves so much.