Deputy Sentenced in Shooting : Courts: He receives a six-month jail term and $6,000 fine for wounding a motorist who left the scene after hitting the off-duty L.A. County officer’s motorcycle.

SANTA ANA —  A suspended Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has been sentenced to six months in jail, five years probation and fined $6,000 for shooting a motorist who hit the deputy’s motorcycle and fled the scene.

Gregory Cook, 42, faced a maximum sentence of nine years in prison for the April 19, 1990, incident in Seal Beach. He was convicted Sept. 16 of assault with a deadly weapon and using a gun in the attack on Reginald Lamont Payne.

At the sentencing Friday, Cook asked Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard to let him serve the six-month term, which begins Dec. 8, at the Brea Jail as a trusty.

Cook was suspended without pay from his job in Los Angeles County after the incident.

The incident began while Cook was off duty and riding his motorcycle with his girlfriend. The car Payne was driving hit Cook’s motorcycle, causing it to wobble, but not fall.

During the trial, Payne, who is black, testified that he planned to stop immediately after the accident. However, he said he became frightened when Cook, who is white, caught up with him at a traffic light, told him he was an armed police officer, and shouted a racial epithet.

Payne acknowledged during the trial that he had been drinking and using cocaine before the incident, and that his driver’s license was invalid, with several traffic warrants outstanding.

Not believing that Cook was an officer, Payne said he drove to the parking lot of the nearby Rockwell International plant, scuffled briefly with Cook, and was shot twice in the back of the leg as he scaled a fence.

Cook denied making the racial remark and said he acted instinctively, based on his police training and 13 years of service. Cook testified that he fired five times at Payne because he believed that the man was reaching into his waistband for a weapon.

“I had numerous chances to shoot him if that had been my aim,” Cook is quoted in a pre-sentencing probation report. “I only did so when I thought he was going to kill me.”

The probation report concluded that Cook “used extremely poor judgment” and “reacted poorly, while angry, stressed and pushed to respond quickly.”

The report said Cook was involved in several incidents in which he improperly brandished his weapon. Cook’s insurance companies have paid Payne $130,000, according to his probation report. Payne is also suing Los Angeles County.

An earlier trial on the same charge ended with the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for conviction.