Defendant Pleaded Guilty to Manslaughter
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a man has been sentenced
to 20 years in prison for the 2016 strangulation of a 27-year-old man with whom he was living
in the Bronx.
Bronx.
District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant killed his boyfriend, whom he had been in
a relationship with for several months. We hope today’s sentence brings some peace to the
victim’s family.”
District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Marcus Bellamy, 35, who was living with the
victim at 104 West 174th Street at the time of the killing, was sentenced today to 20 years in
prison and 5 years post-release supervision by Bronx Supreme Court Justice John Carter.
Bellamy pleaded guilty to first-degree Manslaughter on February 20, 2019.
According to the investigation, in the late afternoon of August 19, 2016, inside the victim’s
apartment at 101 West 174th Street, the defendant, a Broadway dancer, beat and strangled
Bernardo Almonte, causing his death. After the murder, the defendant wrote a post on social
media related to the crime in which he asked for forgiveness. Bellamy then told a neighbor that
he had killed Almonte. The neighbor called the NYPD and the defendant was arrested shortly
afterwards.
The victim sustained injuries to his larynx, fractures to his hyoid bone and had bite marks
in the area between his shoulder and chest. Almonte was also found with signs of struggle and
bruises around his body.
District Attorney Clark thanked Detective Christine Reyes of the Bronx
Homicide Squad for her assistance in the investigation.
