A 43-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to nearly nine years in prison for shooting a Burnsville man he thought was seeing his ex-girlfriend.

The victim told officers he had been sleeping at his home on Nov. 30, 2022, when Ronald Lambert Nielsen entered his house and bedroom, accused him of talking with his ex-girlfriend and shot him in the abdomen and buttocks, according to the Dakota County charges.

Ronald Lambert Nielsen (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

Nielsen, of Faribault, Minn., pleaded guilty to first-degree assault on Jan. 9, when a jury trial was set to begin. Attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm by an ineligible person charges were dismissed at sentencing as part of a plea agreement.

As part of the plea deal, Nielsen faced a prison sentence between just over seven years and nearly 13 years. Judge Ann Offermann gave him eight years and seven months, with credit for 187 days already served in custody.

According to the criminal complaint, the Burnsville man called 911 and said he had just been shot twice and “was bleeding to death.” He told dispatch the shooter left. Before being taken to the hospital, he identified the gunman as Nielsen and said he goes by the name “Barney.”

Officers later spoke with a Faribault woman who said she had left Nielsen several days ago. She said she had received a text message from someone who said Nielsen had shot someone and that she should be careful. She said Nielsen “believes she’s been sleeping with people, has been acting differently the last several months, and that she’s never seen him like this,” the complaint states.

The shooting victim told officers from the hospital he told Nielsen before he fired the shots that he was not seeing the woman. He said Nielsen threatened to “blow your brains out” and shot him twice.

He told police he hadn’t spoken with Nielsen in approximately three months, but had been receiving “nonsense text messages from him,” the complaint states. He said he had dated the woman approximately 13 years ago.

He told officers that doctors had to remove a part of his small intestine, but the bullets missed other organs.

Nielsen was convicted of third-degree assault in Dakota County in March 2005, making him ineligible to possess firearms, court records show.

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