By JOHN T. WARD
A former Red Bank man who did time for a double shooting in 2007 was found guilty in the 2014 shooting of a man as he sat in a parked car in Red Bank, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni announced Tuesday afternoon.
Anthony Sims, seen in the decade-old photo at right, was convicted of first-degree attempted murder in the April 9, 2014 attack on Perry Veney Jr., who is separately charged with later participation in the murder of Sims’ brother in Eatontown.
At a five-week trial in Freehold, Monmouth County prosecutors alleged that Sims, of Long Branch, escalated a family feud when he fired some 15 shots at Veney, also of Long Branch, while he sat in a car in his grandmother’s driveway at 13 Willow Street in Red Bank.
Sims had been out of prison just two months following a term for attempted manslaughter in the shooting of two brothers on the borough’s West Side when he shot Veney, authorities alleged.
Evidence presented during the trial revealed that Sims traveled to Red Bank, where he found Veney, now 31, seated in the driver’s seat of his car. Using a semi-automatic handgun, Sims fired 15 rounds into the vehicle, striking Veney more than 10 times.
Veney was airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where he underwent multiple lifesaving operations.
As a result of a joint investigation conducted by Red Bank police and the prosecutor’s office, Sims was arrested five days after the shooting in Neptune.
Veney did not testify at the trial. The jury also found Sims guilty of weapons offenses, Gramiccioni said in a statement.
Sims faces a possible life term when he returns to court on August 18 for sentencing by Superior Court Judge Thomas F. Scully. Due to his prior criminal record, Sims is “extended-term eligible” and faces a minimum sentence of 20 years. Any sentence will require Sims to serve 85 percent of the term before being eligible for parole, under the No Early Release Act, Gramiccioni said.
This case was prosecuted by Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutors Martha Nye and Caitlin Sidley, and included testimony by Red Bank police.
Fifteen months after the shooting, Veney and a Delaware man, Frederick Reed, shot and killed Sims’ brother, Rasheem Palmer outside the Country Club Apartments in Eatontown, authorities alleged last December. That case has not gone to trial.
