ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A Maryland man convicted of fatally shooting the mother of a U.S. Naval Academy football player with a stray bullet was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Capital Gazette reports that Angelo Harrod’s life sentence was the maximum punishment sought in the case.
In December, a jury convicted Harrod, 31, of Annapolis, of charges including first-degree murder in the June 2021 shooting death of Michelle Cummings, the mother of Navy football player Trey Cummings.
Cummings, 57, of Houston, came to Annapolis with her husband to celebrate their son’s Naval Academy induction. Cummings and her husband were sitting on the patio of a nearby hotel when she was shot by the stray bullet.
Prosecutors said Harrod killed Cummings when he and a second, unnamed man fired at an occupied SUV. Authorities believe two people in the parked car appeared to be the intended victims.
During Harrod’s trial, neither prosecutors nor police named the second man linked to the shooting.
Defense attorney Howard Cardin said Harrod did not fire the bullet that killed Cummings.
“I wouldn’t shoot at anybody I didn’t know,” Harrod said at his sentencing hearing.
Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Pamela Alban said she has “no doubt” that Harrod was responsible for the 2021 attack.
“You don’t care about the rules,” Alban told him.
Before the sentencing, the judge dismissed a defense request for a new trial.
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