Guilty plea in teen’s shooting

Coatesville boy was wounded by a stray bullet during shootout in broad daylight

WEST CHESTER >> The brother of a reputed violent street gang leader from Coatesville has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an open-air shootout in the city that inadvertently left a teenager wounded.

On Monday, 25-year-old Rodney Gaffney entered his plea to charges of aggravated assault and persons not to possess a firearm before Common Pleas President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody at the Chester County Justice Center.

Gaffney, who had been awaiting a retrial of his case before Cody before entering the plea, will not be formally sentenced until the prosecution and defense can agree on the amount of restitution he should pay for the medical expenses suffered by the teenager, an innocent bystander in the alleged gunplay between Gaffney, his friend Maurice Scott, and their friend-turned-enemy, Zaequon “Quon” Closson.

But both sides — Assistant District Attorney Alex Gosfield and defense attorneys Vincent DiFabio of Paoli and Robert Donatoni of West Chester — told Cody that they had agreed on the proposed sentence they would present to her when those details are calculated.

Gaffney will serve a term of 11 1/2 to 23 months plus four years probation on the assault charge, and a subsequent one year probation of the firearms charge. The sentence generally allows Gaffney, a convicted felon, to escape serving time in state prison.

Gosfield, the prosecutor, told Cody that the decision to offer Gaffney a sentence that would essentially see him freed within weeks, was made after reviewing the strength of the case against him, and speaking with Closson and the teenager about whether they would dispute the terms. Neither did.

Cody noted that the case against Scott had already gone to trial before her and returned with a not guilty verdict because of questions about the credibility of witnesses such as Closson, a convict himself. Gaffney had been set to go to trial at the same time as Scott, but had to drop out of the case when his then attorney, Brenda Jones, became too ill to proceed.

Even though the negotiated sentence is relatively lenient, Gaffney is not getting off without doing a long stretch of prison time. He has been in custody at Chester County Prison since October 2014, seven months after the shooting, but will be given credit for the amount of time he served from June until Monday on the shooting case. The other prison time will be counted against a state parole violation he suffered because of his arrest in the shooting.

Dressed in a royal blue dress shirt, tie, and black pants, the bespectacled Gaffney said little beyond answering Cody’s questions about his decision to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial. The judge said she expected to hear from him when he returned for formal sentencing.

The shooting that Gaffney admitted to stemmed from a dispute between Closson and Gaffney’s brother, William “Pumpkin” Shockley.

Shockley is the nowjailed leader of a Coatesville street gang, the “Goonies.” Authorities contended at the time of Gaffney and Scott’s arrest that the men were trying to shoot and kill Closson, a former friend of Shockley’s, for testifying against him in an unrelated assault case.

The three men allegedly exchanged gunfire in broad daylight outside Closson’s apartment, an attempt at revenge on Shockley’s behalf. In the hail of bullets, a 14-year-old boy who had gone to a window in his home after hearing the shots was struck in the abdomen. He recovered after being hospitalized.

According Gosfield, the shot that hit the boy came from Closson’s gun as he returned fire at Gaffney and Scott, who had chased him down to the apartment complex to get revenge on him for his testimony against Shockley.

In his testimony at Scott’s 2015 trial, Closson testified that for many years, he and Shockley were friends, along with Gaffney and Scott. All have extensive criminal histories.

That friendship allegedly changed in April 2012, when Closson went to Shockley’s Strode Avenue home to attend a dice game there. When Closson’s brother got into an argument with another player in the game, Closson left the house, only to be followed by Shockley, who had taken the other man’s side in the dispute.

Shockley pistol-whipped Closson outside the house, knocking him unconscious. He also stole $4,000 in cash that had been in Closson’s pocket.

For months Closson kept quiet about the assault, according to authorities. But after a drug arrest landed him in jail, Shockley sent a letter in which he accused Closson of labeling Shockley a “snitch” – a taboo subject in the urban street world. In the letter there were drawings of headstones with the letters “R.I.P.’ above them. The threats led Closson to identify Shockley as the man who robbed and assaulted him at the dice game, and to testify about the incident at a preliminary hearing.

Before he had to testify at Shockley’s Common Pleas Court trial, however, Shockley pleaded guilty to the assault and robbery. He was sentenced — coincidentally, by Cody — to 7 1/2 to 15 years on those charges and other counts.

Then, in the late afternoon hours of March 18, 2014, Closson was driving near the intersection of Hope and Charles streets in the West End of Coatesville when he saw Gaffney and Scott in a white Ford Explorer. They saw him, and began chasing him through the streets to the Regency apartments, where he lived with a girlfriend, and where he kept a gun in his brother’s car.

When the two cars arrived, said Gosfield, Closson went to the car, only to be confronted by Scott, who had a TEC-9 submachine gun pointed at him. When he tried to fire, however, the gun jammed. Then, Gaffney came at him with a pistol and fired eight shots, all of which missed.

As the two men got back into the Ford and sped away, Closson got his weapon from the car and fired two shots at them. One struck the boy inside his home.

Closson was interviewed later about the shooting by city police, but he claimed he did not know the men who fired at him and blamed the boy’s shooting on them. However, when he was later arrested on drug charges, he decided to tell police what had actually had happened.