Malcolm Dunem left a Westmoreland County courtroom shaking his head after jurors acquitted the man accused of shooting him on an Arnold street in 2018.

Nicholas Haynes appeared to sob as he and defense attorney Adam Gorzelsky embraced after the verdict announcement Monday afternoon that ended a five-day trial. The defense argued it was another man who fired three rounds from a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun that left Dunem seriously wounded April 12, 2018, near Kenneth Avenue.

“All he said was, ‘God is good,’ ” Gorzelsky said outside the courtroom. “He’s been praying for the right result. He’s told me the same story from the beginning, and he maintained his innocence from the first day I met him. He’s thankful for another shot at living.”

Prosecutors argued Dunem, now 21, and another eyewitness identified Haynes as the shooter as retribution for cooperating with police investigating an unrelated robbery several months earlier.

District Attorney John Peck, who tried the case, said he is disappointed with the verdict.

“The victim was seriously injured, and all the credible evidence pointed to the defendant,” Peck said.

Jurors deliberated more than two hours before finding Haynes, 24, formerly of New Kensington, not guilty of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, illegal possession of a weapon and four related counts, including witness intimidation and tampering with witness testimony.

Haynes, who is charged in the assault of another inmate at the jail, will remain behind bars on $50,000 bond until that case, also filed in 2018, is resolved.

In his closing argument to the jury Monday, Gorzelsky said the prosecution’s case could not be supported by the evidence, even with the victim’s identification of Haynes as the shooter.

Gorzelsky said Haynes’ testimony from last week that he watched Tavaughn Thornhill shoot Dunem is reliable. The shooting, Gorzelsky argued, was retribution for Dunem’s attempt to have sexual relations with Thornhill’s girlfriend. Both Thornhill and his then-girlfriend arranged a meeting with Dunem to buy ecstasy pills and persuaded a female friend, along with Haynes and another woman, to drive them from Latrobe to Arnold on the night of the shooting.

Haynes told jurors he watched Thornhill fire three shots at Dunem before he seized the gun and ran back to the car. Dunem’s identification of Haynes was out of fear for himself and his family, Gorzelsky argued.

“Mr. Dunem would not be here were it not for the actions of my client,” Gorzelsky told jurors about Haynes’ efforts immediately after the shooting. “The only justice that is left is to find my client not guilty. Mr. Haynes did not shoot Malcolm Dunem. Tavaughn Thornhill did.”

Dunem and Thornhill testified last week Haynes was the shooter.

Peck argued the defense theory of the case does not comport with the evidence and that Thornhill had no motive to shoot Dunem. He told jurors Haynes’ actions in jail, following his arrest, also supported a finding of guilt. Haynes, Peck said, attempted to threaten and bribe Dunem to change his testimony through a letter he gave another inmate to deliver to his accuser.

Peck argued Haynes’ anger Dunem identified friends as participating with him in a robbery is what ultimately led to the shooting.

“He is a man who is loyal to the law in the streets. What’s the expression, ‘snitches get stitches’? That’s his law of the street,” Peck said.

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