Press Releases
04/12/2023
Judge Sentences Jahmari Cooper to 45 Years in Prison for 2017 Murder of Jeri Kollock, Jr. in Bridgeport
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Bridgeport, CT) – Fairfield Judicial District State’s Attorney Joseph T. Corradino announced that Jahmari Cooper, age 23, of Bridgeport was sentenced today by the Honorable Tracy Lee Dayton to 45 years in prison for the October 11, 2017 gunshot murder of Jeri Kollock, Jr., age 18, in the Green Homes Housing Project in Bridgeport.
A 12-person Superior Court jury found Cooper guilty of the crime of murder in violation of Connecticut General Statute Section § 53a-54a(a) on February 8, 2023. Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Tiffany Lockshier, who prosecuted the case, with the assistance of Inspector Richard Donaldson, asked the Court to sentence the defendant to the maximum time in prison. In addition to the 45-year prison sentence, the judge sentenced Cooper to 10 years of special parole.
Evidence produced at trial showed that the victim was stripped naked before he was killed in the basement of Building 1 of the housing complex. An autopsy revealed that the victim had been shot five times.
Cooper, who was 17 at the time of the murder, fled Bridgeport following the homicide and was apprehended in Florida in October 2018. A search of Cooper’s residence on October 26, 2017 produced the semi-automatic pistol used in the commission of the murder.
“This case is symptomatic of the plague of gun violence among young people that afflicts the citizens of Bridgeport,” State’s Attorney Corradino said. “It is the policy of our office to vigorously enforce the law to protect the safety and well-being of the people who live in this community.”
Cooper is also awaiting trial for an unrelated homicide in Manhattan, New York.