BOSTON, March 8, 2013—A Suffolk Superior Court jury returned verdicts today convicting a man of armed assault with intent to murder for a near-fatal stabbing at a Boston homeless shelter, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Jurors also found GARY BLACK (D.O.B. 4/28/79) guilty of aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for repeatedly stabbing a homeless man in the leg, chest, back, and face during the May 28, 2009, incident at the St. Francis House shelter in Boston’s Chinatown.

Assistant District Attorney Montez Haywood of Conley’s Major Felony Bureau proved during the two-day trial that Black walked into the recreation room shortly before 2:00 in the afternoon and stabbed the 42-year-old victim, who was also a homeless man, five times with a kitchen knife. The two were pulled apart by a security guard and a Boston Police officer working a paid detail.

The victim was rushed to Tufts Medical Center, where he was not initially expected to survive. He had no recollection of the incident when he testified at trial and could not identify his assailant. Black’s statements that the victim had sold him counterfeit drugs in the days before the incident,  and a letter Black wrote to a detective making the same claim, were suppressed after a pre-trial hearing, and jurors had no evidence of Black’s motive.

Michael Coffey and Jillian Quigley were the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocates. Black was represented by attorney James Greenberg. He faces up to 20 years when Judge Linda Giles sentences him on Tuesday.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.