A man who fired shots at two people riding on a moped in Yonkers in 2023 was convicted of all charges following a trial in Westchester County Court, the District Attorney’s Office announced.
The jury on Wednesday, April 2, found 29-year-old Rakwon Goodine-Smith of Yonkers guilty of first-degree attempted assault, second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree reckless endangerment, all felonies.
“This defendant’s outrageous conduct put the lives of two passersby in jeopardy,” Westchester DA Susan Cacace said in a statement announcing the verdict. “That he committed this act on a residential street, imperiling the safety of the entire neighborhood, is all the more alarming.”
The early morning shooting on Oct. 29, 2023, occurred near 5 Lawrence St. when Goodine-Smith fired four shots from a .32 caliber pistol at the two people on the moped as it drove by. Neither was hit.
According to court documents, Yonkers police reviewed video surveillance showing the shooting and also that the shooter had been drinking from a distinctive white cup and put it on the ground just before walking into the street and opening fire. The cup was left at the scene and recovered by crime scene detectives, and video showed no one else touching it from the time the shooter drank from it and its recovery by police, according to the documents.
A swab from the cup yielded a DNA profile with a major contributor and a minor contributor. The Westchester forensics lab submitted it to the national Combined DNA Index System database, or CODIS, and a match identified Goodine-Smith as the major contributor to the evidence on the cup, according to the documents.
During the trial, defense lawyer Richard Ferrante unsuccessfully challenged the identification of Goodine-Smith as the shooter.
The defendant was returned to the county jail to await sentencing, which Westchester Judge Anne Bianchi scheduled for May 14. Goodine-Smith faces up to 15 years in prison.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Man convicted of shooting at 2 in Yonkers in 2023. He left DNA on a cup at the scene
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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