La Plata, MD – Antwan Jasper Thompson, 29 of Lanham, was found guilty on nine of the 10 counts against him by a Charles County Circuit Court jury sitting before Judge Amy J. Bragunier Wednesday, June 7, but attempted first-degree murder wasn’t one of them.
Thompson was found not guilty of the most serious charge, but still faces remediation on the nine counts he was found guilty of, including first- and second-degree assault, use of a deadly weapon in a crime of violence, wearing and carrying a handgun upon their person, illegal transport of a weapon in a car, illegal possession of both the firearm and ammunition.
In closing arguments Wednesday, defense attorney Hammad S. Matin argued that the trial was more notable because of the things the police did not do as opposed to what they did do. He argued that there was no physical evidence that linked his client to the crime. He said the detectives didn’t do what they should have done.
“It boggles the mind,” he argued. “It doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t make any sense because Antwan did not commit the crime.” He said that police focused on the defendant because he was identified by the victims in the case.
“Most people who go to a house with the intention to shoot someone generally don’t ring the doorbell,” Matin said.
But Charles County Assistant States Attorney Jeremy Widder was ready for him on that argument. “If criminals were smart we wouldn’t have a job,” he said.
Widder said that the Charles County Sheriff’s Office deputy who waited for and then stopped the defendant’s car on Route 228 heading for Lanham, where Thompson lived at the time of the shooting, gave the state all the evidence it needed to convict him: A gun which matched the shell casing found in the driveway of the victim’s home Nov. 25, 2016, when he allegedly shot at a man engaged to his former girlfriend, on Bramley Court in Waldorf; and a mask he wore over his face when he confronted the victim in the driveway.
He added that the defendant’s actions were the result of a toxic five-year relationship between the victim’s fiancé and Thompson. When the woman told the victim she was going to see Thompson in jail three days after the shooting, the victim said he called off their engagement.
“That he would have everything in his car 16 minutes after the shooting that the victim told police they would find, the gun, the mask, a magazine with two rounds missing … it all matches,” Widder said. “What are the odds?”
Sentencing will take place later this summer.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com