FREEHOLD – A Brooklyn man has been found guilty in a 2023 shooting that left a man and woman wounded inside a Center Street home, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said.
Damian Bell, 51, was convicted after a two-week trial and faces up to 60 years in state prison when sentenced on October 16.
Authorities said police responded to the home on August 25, 2023, and found two victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Investigators later determined Bell argued with the male victim, left to retrieve a handgun upstairs, and returned to shoot both the man and a woman who was attempting to flee while carrying her young child. Bell then ran from the scene.
The victims were hospitalized with their injuries. Bell was arrested months later in Rowan County, North Carolina.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on two counts of second-degree aggravated assault, one first-degree weapons offense and two second-degree weapons charges.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant Prosecutor Michael Luciano of the Major Crimes Bureau. Bell was represented by defense attorney Shane Paugh of Middletown.
