Roy Johnson, one of the two men charged in the deadly Marriott hotel shooting of a Long Island father visiting Poughkeepsie for a college family weekend last fall, was found guilty Friday of second-degree murder.
A Dutchess County jury found Johnson guilty of the murder charge, in addition to a number of weapon charges and reckless endangerment, the county prosecutor's office said. He was acquitted of an attempted murder charge.
Johnson Jr., the alleged gunman and a known fugitive at the time, had pleaded not guilty to firing 30 shots in and around the Courtyard by Marriott on Oct. 2, the day 53-year-old Paul Kutz, of East Northport, was killed in the hotel lobby.
“The Kutz family has been devastated in a way that we cannot comprehend nor change, but we hope this verdict will in some small way provide the family with the ability to move forward," Chief Assistant District Attorney Matthew Weishaupt said in a statement Friday.
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Paul Kutz had been in Poughkeepsie, where one of his three sons attended Marist College, and was in the lobby at the Courtyard by Marriott when gunshots rang out. Kutz is survived by his wife, three sons, three brothers and his father. He was 53 years old.
Johnson had been indicted alongside Devin Taylor in the death of Kutz. Taylor pleaded guilty to a weapons charge earlier this year -- and to murdering another man in a separate investigation in the same city this past summer.
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A judge continued the no-bail remand for Johnson after Friday's conviction. He faces 40 years to life in prison at a sentencing hearing on June 26.
