FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Gang Member Sentenced to 23 Years to Life in Prison for Fatally Shooting Man in Bedford-Stuyvesant
Defendant Shot Victim in the Back and Shattered His Spine
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 23-year-old man has been sentenced to 23 years to life in prison for beating and fatally shooting a man in 2014 inside an abandoned brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, “This defendant senselessly took the life of another man and now he has been held accountable. This type of cold-hearted violence will not be tolerated on the streets of Brooklyn.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Joseph Hutcherson, 23, of East New York, Brooklyn. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to 23 years to life in prison. The defendant was convicted of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in September following a jury trial.
According to trial testimony, on August 20, 2014, at approximately 12:44 a.m., the victim, Seneca McCullough, 35, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, went to speak with the defendant about a fight they had the day before. Once inside of 456 Quincy Street ¬¬¬– a known stash house for the Gates Avenue Mafia street gang¬¬¬¬ ¬¬– the defendant led the victim to the basement where he beat and shot him.
The District Attorney said that, according to trial testimony, the defendant shot the victim twice, once in his lower back shattering his spine, and then to the back of his head. The defendant fled to an apartment in Coney Island after the shooting and was heard discussing it with an individual whose phone was being wiretapped by the New York City Police Department. Testimony also revealed that he confessed to the murder to his mother.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Ernest Chin, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, and Senior Assistant District Attorney William Neri, of the District Attorney’s Blue Zone Trial Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Timothy Gough, Homicide Bureau Chief.
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