Two Bronx, New York brothers were indicted for fatally shooting an innocent woman who was caught in the crossfire of a gambling dispute last month, officials announced Thursday.
20-year-old Donald Johnson and brother, 34-year-old Rakell Hampton, were indicted on murder, manslaughter and weapons possession charges after Juana Esperanza Soriano De-Perdomo was shot in the back with a stray bullet, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office alleged.
The brothers and a third person got into an argument with three vendors in the area when Johnson allegedly pulled out a 9mm handgun from his backpack and fired five shots at the vendors, police said at the time.
One bullet struck the 61-year-old woman – who was walking alone on East 188th Street – piercing her lung and heart, prosecutors allege.
“These defendants allegedly pulled out guns and one of them fired it at three men during an argument on the street,” DA Darcel Clark said in a statement. “This callous disregard for passersby caused the death of 61-year-old mother and grandmother Juana Esperanza Soriano De Perdomo.”
De-Perdomo was shot in a lung and her heart outside a deli in The Bronx.
“This is another senseless shooting causing death and the devastation of a family,” Clark said.
The brothers were arraigned earlier this week in Bronx Supreme Court where they pleaded not guilty. They were both held without bail.
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