Early in the morning on July 8, 2023, Antoine C. Loup drove to 4 Fillmore Ave. in Endicott. Less than 10 minutes later, Aaron LeGare was fatally shot.
Loup, 51, of Binghamton, arrived just after 12 a.m. and stopped his car right outside the residence where LeGare and eight others were having a party. It was the day before 41-year-old LeGare’s birthday.
After a brief conversation at Loup’s car, a gunshot was heard. LeGare limped back to his friends − Loup had shot him in the chest.
Emergency services arrived on the scene and attempted to resuscitate LeGare, but he died at the scene. Loup fled shortly after his pistol had fired.
This was the narrative unpacked in a five-day trial in Broome County Court. On Friday, a jury found Loup guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in the shooting death of LeGare.
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During the trial, Loup took the stand and professed his innocence, testifying that he pulled the trigger accidentally as LeGare, who he described as belligerently drunk and “frothing at the mouth,” was confrontational and reached for the pistol he held in his hand.
He testified that he pulled the gun out of fear, and he loaded the pistol as LeGare left the passenger side window and approached the driver side of the vehicle.
Moments later, caught on a nearby Ring camera, a flash went off and Loup could be seen fleeing the scene.
Loup testified during cross examination that he went home, stashed the pistol in a plastic bag and hid it between the wall and the insulation of his attic to “keep it safe.”
He was arrested the following day, and on Aug. 29, 2023, he pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
Loup’s defense attorney Benjamin Bergman argued during the trial that Loup did not intend to kill LeGare, and was therefore guilty of criminally negligent homicide. The prosecution argued it was murder.
Loup’s defense: An accidental shooting
Bergman argued in court and during his closing statements that Loup unintentionally pulled the trigger when LeGare reached into the vehicle and attempted to grab the gun.
He argued that in cases of homicide, the killer often fires more than once, ensuring the victim is dead. In this incident, which Bergman called an “unfortunate accident,” the gun fired only once before Loup fled.
The bullet went through the frame of Loup’s vehicle before striking LeGare on the right side of his chest near his shoulder, and LeGare spent three minutes at Loup’s passenger side window before circling the front of the vehicle and getting to the driver’s side. During that time, Bergman argued, “If he had an intent to kill, an intent to seriously injure, an intent to shoot, he would’ve done it right then and there.”
The case against Loup
Broome County Assistant District Attorney Lucas Finley, who prosecuted the case, began his closing arguments with LeGare’s last words − “He shot me.”
On the stand, Loup testified that he had interacted with LeGare three separate times the day before he was killed, and he ended up at 4 Fillmore Ave. that morning to congratulate LeGare on a new job. LeGare was a friend of Loup’s then-girlfriend, and following a fight with her that day, Loup claimed he was looking for “brownie points” by speaking to LeGare.
In court, Finley argued Loup’s intentions were not so simple. He said witnesses shared rumors that LeGare had had a sexual encounter with Loup’s then-girlfriend. Loup claimed he had never heard the rumor.
“We know the evidence suggests and proves to you that the confrontation actually begins when the defendant unjustifiably introduces that firearm,” Finley said as he addressed the jury. “Everything else is a reaction by the person he threatened with it.”
In the first three minutes of the interaction between Loup and LeGare on the morning of July 8, LeGare can be seen in footage from a neighbor’s Ring security camera at the passenger window engaging in a conversation.
After these three minutes, Loup testified that he pulled the pistol from his bag, claiming he was afraid of LeGare and felt threatened by others at the party in an area he called “the ghetto,” feeling he was the “intended victim of a robbery.”
“Where’s the evidence of that?” Finley said, “Is he referring to Aaron trying to grab the gun after being threatened with it? Some might call that self-defense; some might call that not trying to die.”
LeGare can then be seen in the footage walking around the front of the vehicle and coming to Loup’s open driver side window. Loup testified the gun went off accidentally when LeGare reached into the car, but Finley maintained the trigger was pulled with intent.
Loup was additionally charged with tampering with physical evidence, the gun used to shoot LeGare, after fleeing the scene. When he was caught, he told the arresting officer the gun was at his house. A month later in court, he testified that it was stashed in his attic.
“Who made all those deliberate decisions, those intentional decisions, that resulted in Aaron no longer existing,” Finley said. “The defendant did, not Aaron.”
Loup claimed in a letter sent to the Broome County District Attorney’s Office in September 2024 that he tried to flee the situation twice, which Finley argued is unsupported by video evidence.
“The defendant didn’t do that because he didn’t want to do that, not until he finished what he started,” Finnley said. “He was in control of everything that night.”
Closing arguments concluded around 2 p.m. on Friday, after which the jury deliberated for several hours before delivering a guilty verdict later that evening, which was read by Broome County Judge Carol A. Cocchiola.
A second-degree murder charge carries a possible sentence of up to 25 years to life in prison. A sentencing date has not yet been announced.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Endicott man found guilty in fatal shooting: What the jury heard