The second man convicted of killing 27-year-old Desmond Gardner was sentenced to life plus 20 years for his role in Cherry Hill’s fatal shooting in 2023.
Andrew Curry, 25, stood alongside his defense attorney, Natalie Finegar at sentencing on May 21 before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Charles J. Peters. His co-defendant, Parris Harris was sentenced to life in July 2024, while the third suspect remains unknown.
Judge Peters imposed a sentence of life for first-degree murder and a consecutive 20 years, the first five years without parole, for using a firearm in a crime of violence. Curry also received concurrent sentences of life for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and possessing a firearm with a felony conviction.
During Curry’s trial last November, jurors were shown Baltimore City surveillance footage of three masked men approaching and opening fire on Gardner on the 3400 block of Spelman Road on Jan. 26, 2023. Gardner was dead when city police arrived on scene in the Cherry Hill neighborhood and found the victim with 12 gunshot wounds and 12 fragment wounds across the back of his body, head and face.
The video “speaks to the calculations of violence” shown by the defendant’s actions, the prosecutor told Judge Peters at Curry’s sentencing on Thursday. All three of the men are seen in the video continuing to shoot Gardner seconds after the victim had already fallen to the ground.
“[Curry] was hunted down and executed in the street in broad daylight,” he said.
Curry currently implicated in 15 infractions allegedly committed since his incarceration, the prosecutor said, six of which involved violence toward another inmate or correctional officer. In addition, he has three prior gun convictions – his longest sentence being four years for illegally possessing a firearm in 2020.
Finegar said the prosecutor’s recommendation of a life sentence with the possibility of parole “hand ties” the Department of Parole and Probation’s capabilities. Rarely, if ever, does the board grant a defendant parole on a life sentence, she explained.
The attorney later highlighted Curry’s upbringing, saying there was “a constant struggle so [his mother] could provide for him financially.”
Curry has “just now reached that age of maturity as an adult,” she said. “…We don’t know what his rehabilitation capabilities may be in some ways.”
