COLUMBIA, Pa. — A Columbia man was convicted in Lancaster County Court this week of firing a handgun into a parked vehicle in the borough last year.
Joel Jomar Ortiz-Rivera, 27, was found guilty of aggravated assault, discharging a firearm into an occupied structure, and recklessly endangering another person after a two-day trial, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office said.
He is free on bail and was placed on GPS monitoring while he awaits sentencing, according to prosecutors.
According to evidence presented at trial, Ortiz-Rivera fired three rounds from a .40 caliber Baretta handgun into a parked vehicle at 10:53 p.m. on June 16, 2021.
The victim in the passenger seat suffered lacerations to his right arm and neck from shattered glass.
The bullet from the defendant’s handgun entered the windshield on the passenger side of the vehicle and lodged itself in the frame of the front passenger-side door, mere inches from where the victim was seated.
Police located two men, Ortiz-Rivera and his cousin, in the defendant’s home with two handguns in plain view on the dining room table.
One of the handguns was the .40 caliber Beretta and the other a Taurus 9mm handgun, which were both recovered by police.
Evidence showed the projectile recovered from the vehicle came from the .40 caliber handgun fired by the defendant.
Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Baker prosecuted the case saying it was an unnecessary and completely avoidable episode of gun violence in Columbia Borough.
“We’re lucky we aren’t here for something worse,” Baker told the jury.
The jury returned its verdict in about 2½ hours on Tuesday.
