Police initially arrested Sky Korbut on a lesser assault charge before new evidence led to an indictment, trial and 70-month sentence.
BEAVERTON, Ore. — When Sky Alexander Korbut called 911 in November 2024, he reported that he had accidentally shot his 16-year-old girlfriend. Detectives would later say the surviving teenager gave them information that contradicted him, helping turn an initial third-degree assault case into a second-degree assault conviction and 70-month prison sentence.
The shift between those two versions of the case is at the center of the prosecution that concluded this summer in Washington County. Beaverton police responded to Korbut’s home on Southwest Prairie Terrace at about 4:55 a.m. on Nov. 21, 2024, and found the girl with a serious gunshot wound to the abdomen. Officers arrested Korbut, then 18, on third-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm allegations. But investigators kept working while the teenager underwent emergency treatment. Police later said detectives uncovered additional evidence, including statements from her that conflicted with Korbut’s account. A grand jury indicted him on second-degree assault, and jurors convicted him of that charge and unlawful firearm possession after a weeklong trial in April 2026.
The investigation’s evolution matters because the first explanation of a shooting often arrives before police have interviewed every witness, examined all available evidence or learned whether an injured person will survive to give an account. In this case, the person who had been shot was initially in critical condition and underwent repeated operations. Korbut, meanwhile, was able to speak with officers from the beginning. His early statement framed the gunfire as an accident. Police did not simply freeze the case at that point. Their later public statement specifically cited the teenager’s account among the evidence that changed the direction of the investigation. Authorities have not released every piece of evidence presented at trial, so the full basis for the verdict cannot be reconstructed from police announcements alone.
Korbut told investigators that he had been handling a Smith & Wesson handgun in his room, according to court documents cited in news reports. He said he thought he had removed the magazine and described the firearm discharging while he was moving or waving it. Reports citing the records said he appeared unsure of how it fired. He also told investigators that he bought the handgun illegally from a person on the street after failing background checks. That admission provided context for the separate unlawful possession charge but did not, by itself, resolve what happened at the instant the teenager was shot.
Other information described a more specific interaction between Korbut, the teenager and the handgun. The girl had gone to his home because she wanted a ride home, according to reports based on court records. Korbut was cleaning his room and had placed the firearm on a dog kennel. When the weapon was brought near her, she told him to move it away and pushed or slapped it aside, the reports said. Prosecutors maintained that Korbut shot her seconds later. The available public reporting does not establish an additional motive, and officials have not alleged that he lured her to the home or announced a plan to shoot her. The jury was asked to decide the assault charge based on the evidence presented in court.
The teenager’s ability to speak with investigators depended first on her surviving extensive injuries. Her mother told KPTV shortly after the shooting that doctors carried out a series of operations over several days. She remained sedated in intensive care before being declared stable. Court information cited in later reporting said the bullet injured multiple organs, including parts of her digestive system, and that she required about 20 liters of blood during treatment. Her family was told at one point that she might not make it. The girl survived, giving detectives a source of evidence that had not been fully available in the immediate aftermath.
Her own communications from the minutes after the shooting also documented the emergency. Messages she sent her mother included “I got shot,” followed by “Mama,” “Plz” and “Help me.” Her mother had been asking where she was and expected her to return home. She later said she awoke to the shooting message but found her daughter’s phone off. Unable to reach her directly, she began contacting hospitals. She eventually learned that the teenager had been taken to Oregon Health & Science University, where surgeons were working to treat her injuries. Those texts showed the girl’s distress but did not alone explain how the trigger was pulled; that question became part of the later criminal investigation.
The formal change in the case came after detectives assembled enough information for prosecutors to seek a grand jury indictment. Beaverton police said the grand jury charged Korbut with second-degree assault under Oregon’s Measure 11 framework, along with unlawful possession of a firearm. That move replaced the lesser assault allegation that followed his initial arrest with an offense carrying a substantially longer prison consequence. Oregon Revised Statutes list 70 months as the mandatory minimum sentence for second-degree assault under the applicable sentencing provision. Exceptions can exist in Oregon’s broader sentencing law, but the court in Korbut’s case imposed the full 70-month term.
The prosecution then moved into a phase in which evidence was tested in front of jurors rather than evaluated only by police and prosecutors. Beaverton police said the April 2026 trial lasted one week. A jury found Korbut guilty of both counts. That verdict is the critical legal distinction between the case’s early and later stages. Korbut was no longer merely accused under an upgraded indictment; jurors had concluded that prosecutors proved the criminal charges submitted to them. The available police announcement does not provide jurors’ deliberations or explain which individual evidence they found most persuasive, so it would go beyond the public record to assign the verdict to any single statement, text message or exhibit.
The court imposed sentence several months after the trial. Police announced in early August that a Washington County Circuit Court judge had ordered Korbut, now 20, to serve 70 months in the Oregon Department of Corrections. The sentence amounts to five years and 10 months. The police notice did not provide a detailed sentencing memorandum, victim-impact statement or defense argument, and it did not say that the punishment was based on a newly alleged motive. Instead, officials tied the prison term to the second-degree assault conviction reached after the investigation and trial.
The case also shows why descriptions used immediately after violent incidents can change over time. Early local coverage referred to an apparently accidental shooting because that was what Korbut had reported and because police were still investigating. The girl’s mother was focused publicly on whether her daughter would survive. Detectives later said they obtained contradictory evidence. Prosecutors then pursued a stronger charge, and jurors convicted Korbut. Those stages do not mean early reports were necessarily fabricated; they reflect different amounts of verified information being available at different points in a nearly two-year criminal process.
For the teenager’s family, the legal development came long after the most immediate emergency. Her mother had described waiting through multiple surgeries and hoping simply to hear her daughter’s voice and laughter again. At the time, the family expected recovery to take a long time. The sentencing announcement confirms that the teenager survived but does not provide a current medical update. Neither police nor the other official material reviewed for the case gives a complete account of any lasting physical effects.
With the prison sentence imposed, the core Washington County prosecution has reached its conclusion. Korbut stands convicted rather than merely accused of second-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm, and Beaverton police have not announced additional charges arising from the shooting. The final legal outcome came only after investigators revisited the account they received in the first 911 call and incorporated evidence from the teenager who survived it.
Author note: Last updated September 21, 2026.