Although a mistrial was declared June 7 for Shacoor R. Trapp, the man accused of trying to kill his Maple Street neighbor Tiffany Nixon on May 29, 2011, a Lycoming County judge recently found the 24-year-old guilty of a felony firearms charge.
In an order dated June 14, Judge Marc F. Lovecchio ruled Trapp guilty of a person not to possess a firearm charge.
The charge was separated from the attempted homicide trial, and attorneys agreed to conduct a non-jury trial on the firearms charges after the original trial ended.
Prosecutors submitted evidence that Trapp pleaded guilty to indecent assault and unlawful restraint charges on July 9, 2010, in Philadelphia court.
Evidence from the attempted homicide trial showed that Trapp was seen by another neighbor a few nights before the May 29, 2011 attack firing a small silver gun.
As a convicted felon, Trapp was restricted by law from having a firearm.
"In reviewing all the evidence, the court concludes that the defendant was in fact the individual who attacked Ms. Nixon and was in fact the individual who possessed and used a firearm," Lovecchio wrote in his verdict.
During testimony in the attempted murder case, Nixon said she saw Trapp with a gun.
Lovecchio wrote that it is "logical that her recall of the event and the identity of her attacker became more clear as time went on."
The judge also opined that "the defendant hiding from the police between ceiling joists of an attic laying in insulation in a dark and hot area is certainly consciousness of guilt" and that "the bloody socks in defendant's residence which contained Ms. Nixon's DNA also strongly supports defendant's guilt."
Sentencing on the firearms violation will be before Lovecchio on Oct. 9.
