Victims appeared in court to testify against suspect Harley Freeman, 25, on Tuesday. Both said they knew the defendant.
Freeman is facing multiple charges, including aggravated robbery, in connection with the April 14 home invasion at 2202 Elder St. In January of 2015, police said Freeman was a suspect in a shooting on Lyndon Avenue, but he was not charged.
Prosecutor Kristen Spires spoke to residents of the Elder Street apartment about the night of the incident. Devonte Brown said three men broke down the door and came into his home, faces covered with bandanas, demanding money “or whatever (he) had.”
Freeman, he said, had a firearm.
Mr. Brown told Judge Clarence Shattuck he fought with all three men, but sustained no serious injuries. He said during the fight, all the bandanas came off. Freeman, the witness said, was once his friend.
Prosecutor Spires also spoke to Mr. Brown’s girlfriend, who was living with him at the time of the incident. She said the men “put (her) on the ground” and started fighting with Mr. Brown before they began “ransacking the whole house.”
She told the judge the suspects tried to take some watches, but did not get anything. She said Freeman grabbed a television, but fell down the stairs on the way out and left it.
It was there, in the stairwell, she said, that the first shot was fired. Mr. Brown told the judge two more shots were fired about 50 yards from his residence as the suspects were fleeing toward a blue Jeep Cherokee, identified by the girlfriend as belonging to the defendant.
“I know it is Harley’s Jeep because he had drove it over to the house before,” she said.
She told the judge Freeman had been to their house in Red Bank on multiple occasions. She also said one of the other suspects, “JB,” had come over to their apartment about two or three weeks prior to the incident.
“Harley brought him over as a friend,” she said.
Jason Delane “JB” Brown, 42, was also charged with aggravated robbery and criminal conspiracy for the Elder Street home invasion.