A career criminal who got away with a 2012 murder in the Bronx has been charged with fatally shooting a close friend of the victim’s family, just over a year after being released from state prison.
Deshawn Coleman, 46, shot and killed Hassan Richburg, 26, a friend of Victor Maldonado’s sister, about 12 years ago just two blocks away, police and court officials said. He is being indicted on charges of.
Coleman was charged with murder in Maldonado’s death, but at trial he claimed self-defense, was found not guilty on a firearms charge, and was sent to prison until January 2023.
Now, police and prosecutors say Coleman shot Richburg “multiple times” during an argument over a girl at a West Kingsbridge Avenue apartment last month.
He was arrested nearly a week later and taken to Bronx Criminal Court, where the prosecutor’s office asked that he be held on Rikers Island without bail, and the judge agreed.
Coleman, also known as “Boogie,” was already at the scene when he allegedly shot and killed Maldonado just before 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 3, 2012, during a heated argument with his girlfriend and the victim’s sister. He had a long rap sheet. said a law enforcement official.
Officials say Coleman has been arrested more than 20 times on charges including attempted murder, assault, drug possession and robbery.
Maldonado, 19, was just days away from joining the U.S. Navy when he was fatally wounded.
Coleman fled the scene, but police later found a .380-caliber gun inside his girlfriend’s apartment, authorities said.
However, at trial he claimed self-defense and was acquitted of the murder charge, instead being found guilty of being a felon in possession of a weapon and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Coleman, who is now free, got into an argument with Richburg on West Kingsbridge Avenue shortly before 11 a.m. on February 8, authorities said.
Coleman allegedly shot and killed a young man who wandered into Caridad Restaurant, a nearby Dominican restaurant, where he collapsed.
He was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. It was the same hospital where his family friend Maldonado died from gunshot wounds about 12 years ago.
Coleman is charged with murder, manslaughter and weapons possession.
He is scheduled to return to court in the Bronx on March 14.
