SALEM — Two Lynn residents were found not guilty of second-degree murder Friday in Essex Superior Court.
James Belmer, 26, and Jasmin Garcia, 29, had been on trial since Oct. 22 for the 2017 killing of Isaac Suggs, 44, which occurred on Newhall Street in Lynn.
The prosecution and defense delivered their closing statements on Thursday. The jury had a verdict before 1 p.m. on Friday and found both defendants not guilty on all counts. Belmer and Garcia had also been facing assault and battery charges.
“We are ecstatic,” said Attorney Leonard Milligan III, who represented Belmer. “I am incredibly elated and my client is overjoyed to be with his family again.”
Belmer and Garcia were walking down Newhall Street on July 15, 2017, when Suggs came off his porch and initiated a fight with them, said Aviva Jeruchim, defense attorney for Garcia, in her opening statement. He acted aggressively, taking a fighting stance and coming at Belmer several times.
After Suggs grabbed Garcia by her throat and took her phone and an envelope with her wage from her hands, both Belmer and Garcia engaged in the fight, which was captured by security cameras.
The fight was broken up by a third party and police were called. A police officer who arrived at the scene called for an ambulance because she learned about Suggs’ diabetes and saw him struggling to breathe.
Suggs became unresponsive in the ambulance. He was taken to Salem Hospital and then transferred via a medical flight to Massachusetts General Hospital. Suggs died two days later.
The defense argued that Suggs died from a natural chemical reaction in combination with pre-existing health conditions. He overexerted himself during the altercation with Belmer and Garcia, which caused the onset of terminal lactic acidosis, Jeruchim said in the opening statement.
Essex Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Gillespie, who represented the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, told the jurors in the opening statement that Suggs’ death was caused by the beating.
Belmer and Garcia spent 4.5 years in jail awaiting trial.
“I always felt strongly that he neither caused the death nor the fight and that in fact he was the victim of the attack that day. None of that is to diminish that everyone including my client considers the death of Isaac Suggs a tragedy. It is just not his fault,” said Milligan.
Garcia’s lawyer, Jeruchim, was unavailable to provide comment at the time of publication.
