The man accused of shooting and killing a 7-month-old baby in Brooklyn earlier this month pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder and other charges.
Amuri Greene, 21, was arraigned in Brooklyn Supreme Court for the fatal shooting of Kaori Patterson-Moore, who prosecutors said was in a stroller with her parents and brother in East Williamsburg when she was struck.
Prosecutors said Greene fired multiple times from the back of a moped driven by 18-year-old Mathew Rodriguez, hitting Patterson-Moore and grazing her 2-year-old brother near Humboldt and Moore streets on the afternoon of April 1.
Greene hobbled into court on wooden crutches and kept his head down for much of the brief proceeding.
Police said Rodriguez and Greene fled the scene on the moped and crashed into an oncoming car a few blocks away, leaving Greene with leg injuries.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Mirabella said in court that Greene gave EMTs a fake name in the ambulance after he and Rodriguez collided with another car as they fled the shooting.
After the crash, according to prosecutors, Rodriguez picked up the gun, dropped Greene off at the New York City Housing Authority’s Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, then abandoned the moped and tampered with its license plate.
Greene was taken to the hospital and placed in custody after someone called 911 about the crash, officials said.
Judge Danny Chun ordered Greene held without bail.
Greene’s lawyer, Jay Schweitzer, declined to comment.
Outside the courtroom on Wednesday, Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez said the infant was not the intended target but declined to say whether the shooting was gang-motivated.
“The motive is pretty clear,” he said. “They were looking to shoot at a person. They missed and hit the baby in her stroller, and also injured her brother.”
Greene and Rodriguez are charged with acting in concert to cause Patterson-Moore’s death. They face three counts of second-degree murder, as well as attempted murder, assault, criminal use of a firearm, weapons possession and child endangerment charges. If convicted on the top counts, they could face life in prison.
Rodriguez was extradited from Pennsylvania to New York City, where he was arrested by NYPD detectives assigned to the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force after a search. A grand jury indicted him and Greene last week.