BOSTON GANG MEMBER SENTENCED TO 4 1/2 YEARS FOR GUN OFFENSE
BOSTON, Mass. - A Dorchester man was sentenced today to 4 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of being a felon-in-possession of a firearm and ammunition. The defendant will be on supervised release for three additional years during which time he will be required to live in Rhode Island, will be precluded from entering much of Mattapan and lower Dorchester, and will be prohibited from contacting or being in the company of 46 of his alleged Morse Street gang associates.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Eugenio A. Marquez, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - Boston Field Division, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley and Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, announced today that BROSHAWN COAKLEY, 23, of Dorchester, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel to 4 1/2 years imprisonment to be followed by 3 years of supervised release during which time he will restricted from entering that portion of Boston included in Boston Police Department’s District B-3 and from contacting or being in the company of 46 individuals that the government alleges are members or associates of the Morse Street gang.
COAKLEY had previously pled guilty to the gun offense. At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the Court that, had the case proceeded to trial, the government’s evidence would have proven that the defendant had been arrested on September 25, 2009 after officers executed a search warrant at COAKLEY’s residence and found a gun and ammunition in shoe boxes. The gun removed from one of those boxes was a fully loaded five-shot Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Additionally, .38 caliber ammunition was found in an adjacent box.
At sentencing, the government focused on the defendant’s past criminal record and the contention that COAKLEY was a member of the Morse Street Gang. The government provided materials to the Court demonstrating that the gang operates in lower Dorchester and Mattapan and that COAKLEY’s name had been included in a gang roster recovered several years ago. In addition, according to documents filed with the Court, COAKLEY and other Morse Street associates were recently alleged to have participated in a brazen attack on a gang rival on an MBTA bus on Blue Hill Avenue in the middle of the day. That case remains pending in state Court.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Boston Police Department. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney’s in Ortiz’s Organized Crime Strike Force and Gang Unit.
