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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The man who was shot in front a Downtown law office Tuesday morning told police as he lay in a pool of blood that the suspected shooter, defense attorney David “Chip” Venie, shot him because he smelled bad.

Venie’s lawyer, Ray Twohig, denies that body odor was the motive and said the victim, 43-year-old Stephen Biddinger, was “an intruder, a trespasser” in Venie’s office on the 800 block of Lomas NW in Albuquerque.

“The reason the man claims he was shot is false,” Twohig said in an e-mail. “… There is a lot more to the case.”

According to a criminal complaint, Venie threatened to shoot Biddinger around 10 a.m. Tuesday if Biddinger didn’t leave the office. The address Biddinger listed in the police report is for a homeless shelter Downtown.

Biddinger was found slumped against the office’s front door, bleeding profusely, and one bullet casing was found in the office’s lobby entrance, according to the police report.

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Venie’s wife recorded the encounter on her cellphone, and police say the video shows Biddinger, unarmed, walking slowly toward Venie with his arms up before Venie shot him.

Venie is scheduled to make a court appearance today in Metro Court, and is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Biddinger was released from UNM Hospital on Wednesday, according to a hospital spokesman.

Venie came to New Mexico from San Diego in 2007 after the California State Bar Court suspended him and put him on probation. The three-lawyer panel said Venie sent almost two dozen legal advertisements disguised as confidential attorney-client notices to inmates in California prisons, according to California records.

— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal