A Gloucester man who was indicted by a Mathews grand jury in March 2021 for shooting a resident on Chapel Neck Road in North has been tried and found guilty of drug trafficking and firearms offenses in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk.
Eric Lee Smith, 40, had faced charges of armed robbery, aggravated malicious wounding, and two counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony for offenses that occurred on Nov. 25, 2020 in Mathews, but those charges were nolle prossed when the federal charges were brought against him.
According to a press release from the Mathews County Sheriff’s Office, when deputies arrived at the scene of the Nov. 25 shooting, they found a victim who had been shot multiple times. The victim was airlifted to Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News in stable condition.Witnesses at the scene stated that the suspect, Smith, had pulled up to the residence, talked to the victim, and then opened fire with an automatic weapon...