Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced that, after a four-week trial, a jury found a Yonkers man guilty of murder for the shooting death of 23-year-old Lateef Butler outside a Yonkers apartment building in 2020. The incident was caught on surveillance video.
Terrence Gonzalez, 30, was found guilty on Dec. 21, 2022, of Murder in the Second Degree and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, both violent felonies. The defendant faces a sentence ranging from a minimum of 15 years to life to a maximum of 25 years to life in state prison when he is sentenced on Feb. 16, 2023.
On June 26, 2020, at approximately 6:08 p.m., the defendant used a .38 caliber revolver to shoot the victim five times, striking him in the neck, chest, hip and thigh, during a dispute outside an apartment building where they both lived on Nepperhan Avenue in Yonkers. The victim was transported to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, where he was pronounced dead.
Following the incident, the Yonkers Police Department arrested the defendant in the Saw Mill River, by Stefanik Park in Yonkers, after he fled the shooting scene and led police on a foot chase. During the pursuit, police recovered the gun used to murder the victim under a bush near Center Street, and obtained surveillance video of the fatal shooting.
The case is before Judge George Fufidio in Westchester County Court, and is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Counsel Brian Bendish and Bureau Chief James Bavero, both of the Trials and Investigations Division.
