Damian DeRousha convicted of Donald Geno’s murder

Damian DeRousha

A jury convicted a man of first-degree first-degree murder for fatally shooting a colleague over an affair with his wife. Damian DeRousha44, received a life sentence without parole for manslaughter Donald Geno31

assistant prosecutors Andreas Urbanak called it an “unprovoked cowardly murder.” The Daytona Beach News Journal.

It took the jury two hours to reach a verdict.

Both men and Damian’s wife Shauna DeRousha worked for Volusia County, Florida. Defendant DeRousha learned the other two were having an affair after installing a tape recorder in his wife’s car. He confronted Geno about it on February 4, 2021.

DeRousha testified in his own defense, claiming he was no longer angry when he encountered Geno at a loading dock and urged him to end the affair, according to the outlet. He claimed that it was the other, larger man who actually got combative, threw something at him (something like a wrench he believed) and hit him.

“‘I’m a grown man. I’ll do whatever the hell I want with whoever I want, including your wife, and then he attacked me,” DeRousha testified.

He claimed he had no memory of drawing or firing his gun.

“It’s just a huge white spot,” he said.

He said he already had his gun with him because he took it everywhere.

His wife had had two other affairs before this one.

But prosecutors confronted him with testimony from two other associates that Geno did not appear to be argumentative. For example mechanics in Volusia County Kenneth Hartling said that DeRousha and Geno just seemed to be talking.

DeRousha emptied his 9mm pistol in all eight rounds, leaving Geno with 14 wounds, including two shots in the back and one in the face, authorities said. Hartling testified that he heard the first two shots and saw four more shots.

Urbanak told the jury the repetition of the shots was evidence of intent. Before the shooting, DeRousha sat in his pickup truck at a gas station for 40 minutes and then drove to the maintenance facility, where he killed Geno.

“The defendant does not hesitate when he walks through this gate,” Urbanak said. “He’s like a shark in the water, chasing its prey. He’s going straight to that bay where he knows Donald Geno will be.”

Public Defender of the 7th Circuit Matthew Metz suggested that the two rearward shots were ricochet and that the repeated firings were in self-defense.

“Sharks don’t talk for two minutes,” he said. “Sharks don’t politely walk up to you from their gun with their hands in their jackets and say please stop having sex with my wife. That’s not what sharks do. Damian DeRousha, he’s not a shark. He’s just a normal guy.”

In his counter-argument, Urbanak denied that the two bullets were ricochets.

During the trial, prosecutors also brought DeRousha’s texts to his wife, including “wait until I see Geno and talk to his ass” and a message in which he stated that he knew where the man lived.

Shauna DeRousha reportedly admitted during her testimony that she started the affair with Geno in January 2021, but it was over at the time of the shooting. She said she was not afraid of physical violence on the morning of February 4, 2021.

It was reported that DeRoushas, ​​who have two children, were still together and told each other that they love each other over phone calls in prison.

Donald’s family mourn his absence.

“He destroyed me” Maria Geno said the defendant DeRousha. “He took a part of me that will never come back.”

[Booking photo via Volusia County Jail]

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