WASHINGTON — A man was sentenced Friday to decades in jail for killing a man on Christmas Eve 2014 in a Southeast D.C. alley following a dispute over a stolen jacket.
Joseph Minor, 27, was sentenced to 47 years in prison for fatally shooting 28-year-old Gregory Lee.
The shooting that led to Lee’s death stemmed from a dispute over Lee’s jacket. Minor stole Lee’s jacket at gunpoint, and, a short time later, Lee took it back from Minor, according to prosecutors. The incident angered Minor for days, prosecutors said.
On Dec. 24, 2014, Minor and co-defendant Maurice Blakey confronted Lee in an alley near the 1300 block of Stevens Road SE, in the Barry Farm area of the District. After an argument, prosecutors said Minor and Blakey opened fire on Minor.
Bullets from Minor’s .380 semi-automatic handgun hit Lee, piercing multiple major organs and vessels in his chest. He was found dead in a yard near the alley.
Blakey shot at another person with Lee. That person was not hit.
Police arrested Minor and Blakey a week after Lee’s death and they have been in custody since. Blakey is already serving a 22-year sentence for a separate murder.
Minor was found guilty by a jury in April 2018 of first-degree murder while armed, assault with a dangerous weapon, and related firearms offenses, following a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
