Barnegat man admits to shooting victim, hiding gun on outside windowsill

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An eyewitness account and DNA left on a handgun led to the arrest of a Barnegat man in connection with an October 2022 shooting in Atlantic City, prosecutors said. According to the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office, Louis Stokes, 27, of Barnegat was sentenced on Sept. 24. for aggravated assault, hindering apprehension and weapons offenses as a result of the incident. The charges stem from an Oct. 14, 2022 incident during which Atlantic City police responded to reports of a shooting shortly before midnight on Sewell Avenue. Once at the location, officers located a victim suffering from a nonlife-threatening gunshot wound to the leg. Police also found eight expended 9mm shell casings nearby in the area of Pennsylvania and Adriatic avenues. After obtaining surveillance video from cameras in the area, police discovered that a group of men had been in the area when the shooting occurred and fled inside a nearby home. During the investigation, investigators found three handguns, including a stolen 9mm handgun that police say was used to shoot the victim. "This handgun was found after it was hidden outside a second-floor window on an adjacent exterior windowsill. Stokes’ DNA was present on two of the handguns and he was identified as the shooter by an eyewitness," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. As part of his guilty plea, Stokes admitted to shooting the victim and then hiding to hinder apprehension, the prosecutor said. He was sentenced to five years in a New Jersey state prison under the terms of the No Early release Act, which will require him to serve at least 85% of his sentence before being eligible for parole. Once released, he will be under strict parole supervision for three years, the prosecutor said. "