BRONX MAN SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS IN PRISON FOR MANSLAUGHTER FOR STRANGLING GIRLFRIEND WITH RUBBER WORKOUT BAND

BRONX MAN SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS IN PRISON FOR MANSLAUGHTER FOR STRANGLING GIRLFRIEND WITH RUBBER WORKOUT BAND

Victim’s Teen Daughter Found Mother’s Body While Getting Ready for School

          Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx man was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing the mother of his children by fatally strangling her with a rubber ligature.

          Bronx District Attorney Clark said, “The victim’s children were in the home when their mother was strangled to death by the defendant. They will have to face the trauma of this unimaginable horror for the rest of their lives.”

            District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Angel DeJesus, 46, was sentenced on April 2, 2024, to 25 years in prison and five years’ post release supervision by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Joseph McCormack. The defendant pleaded guilty to first-degree Manslaughter on February 7, 2024.

          According to the investigation, on September 20, 2021, in the early hours of the morning, at the victim and defendant’s Melrose home at 390 East 158^th Street, DeJesus strangled Belkis Lopez to death with a ligature. The defendant then left the home, leaving three children alone with their mother’s body in the apartment. The victim’s 14-year-old daughter woke up to get ready for school and found her mother’s body.

          This case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Allison Kline of the Domestic Violence Bureau under the supervision of Simon Folkard, Deputy Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau, and Agata DiGiovanni, Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau, under the overall supervision of Adrienne Giunta, Deputy Chief of the Special Victims Unit, and Joseph Muroff, Chief of the Special Victims Unit.

          District Attorney Clark thanked Assistant District Attorney William Browne, Assistant District Attorney Jean Paul Rivera, and Assistant District Attorney Sharlene Disla, all of the Domestic Violence Bureau, and Violence Response and Homicide Advocate Supervisor Ana Pimental for their assistance in the case.

          District Attorney Clark thanked NYPD Detective Arelis Collazo of the Bronx Homicide Squad, NYPD Detective John Caruso of the 40^th Precinct and Detective Michael Fahy of the Bronx Warrants Squad for their work on the investigation.