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By
Andrew Michaels
, Racquel Bazos [former] - August 1, 2023
Court
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Daily Stories
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Homicides
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Shooting
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Suspects
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Victims
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After his recent mistrial, homicide defendant Matthew Lipscomb received a November retrial date on July 27 during Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn’s reception court.
The now-29-year-old defendant’s four-day trial concluded on July 21 when Judge Althea Handy declared a mistrial for his first-degree murder, firearm use in the commission of a violent crime and conspiracy to first-degree murder charges. Lipscomb was found guilty of having a handgun on his person and firearm possession with a felony conviction in connection to the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Dione Solomon more than six years ago, on the 2700 block of E. Chase Street.
During closing arguments on July 20, the prosecutor’s theory of the case proposed that Lipscomb was a gun for hire, contracted by a third-party in the neighborhood to kill Solomon, also known as “Money Max,” who had been dealing marijuana in the neighborhood. She also claimed that Lipscomb was trying to leverage his hand in the murder to establish “street cred” as an up-and-coming rapper, which is why he bragged about it to two cellmates.
Defense attorney Natalie Finegar cast doubt on the prosecution’s case, citing the self-serving motivations of jailhouse informants, improper maintenance of the chain of custody by police and the police’s failure to preserve evidence at the crime scene.
After the mistrial, on Thursday, a prosecutor standing in for the assistant state’s attorney assigned to the case and Finegar agreed to a retrial scheduled for Nov. 28, lasting five days before Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill.
According to charging documents, Baltimore Police Department officers found Solomon’s body riddled with gunshot wounds inside a white Honda around 3:49 p.m. on July 1, 2017. A witness later identified Lipscomb as the shooter.
Lipscomb was arrested two days after Solomon’s murder for a handgun violation. Police investigation revealed that the handgun Lipscomb had in his possession was used in the murder.