MANALLEGEDLY HELPEDBRING GUNTOEXECUTE 9- YEAR- OLDBOY
Federal authorities have accused a Chicago man of helping bring to the city the weapon used in the execution- style killing of 9- year- old Tyshawn Lee.
Anthony Morgan, 31, faces four gun charges in a federal indictment filed last week.
He appeared Monday before U. S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole, where a prosecutor revealed the connection to the child’s killing.
Authorities said Morgan paid for seven illegally obtained firearms that were shipped through the mail by an unnamed associate in New Mexico. Assistant U. S. Attorney James Durkin said one of those, a Smith & Wesson .40- caliber pistol, was used to kill Tyshawn — an act he called “one of the most heinous crimes we’ve seen in this city in years.”
Authorities found another of those firearms with Corey Morgan, Anthony Morgan’s brother, Durkin said. Corey Morgan has been charged with murder in Tyshawn’s November 2015 death.
Another weapon was used in a January 2016 killing on the North Side, according to Durkin.
The prosecutor tried to convince Cole to keep Anthony Morgan locked up Monday, but Cole put him on home detention. He also agreed to let Anthony Morgan go back to his job at the U. S. Postal Service, where his mother also works. The judge assigned Morgan’s mother to act as a third- party custodian.
The investigation that led to Anthony Morgan’s arrest involved the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U. S. Postal Inspection Service and the U. S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.
According to the indictment, Morgan collected the firearms between February 2015 and May 2016.
Morgan is accused of using Walmart money transfers to pay the person in New Mexico, who then shipped the guns through the mail, according to the indictment, which says Morgan sent that person about $ 3,700 — including $ 900 sent in September 2015, five days before authorities say Morgan received two .40- caliber pistols. One of those would be used to kill Tyshawn, Durkin said, and the other wound up with Corey Morgan.
Corey Morgan and two other men were charged with Tyshawn’s fatal shooting near a park in Auburn Gresham. Prosecutors have said the shooting was part of a gang war. Another brother of Corey Morgan’s had been killed, and his mother had been wounded, in October 2015 in a shooting authorities believe was carried out by members of a rival gang.
For revenge, Corey Morgan declared “he was going to kill grandmas, mamas, kids and all,” according to prosecutors.
Twenty days after the death of the brother, Tyshawn, a fourth- grader whose father has been identified by the police as being in a rival gang, was playing on a swing at Dawes Park near his grandmother’s home when someone came up and lured him away with the promise of buying him whatever he wanted at a store.
The boy, carrying his basketball, followed that person into an alley and was shot in the temple.