Bridgeport man faces 30 years for courthouse shooting
Gaines, also known as “Santi,” is a reputed member of the “Green Homes Boyz,” or “GHB/ Hotz,” gang based in the Charles F. Greene Homes Housing Complex, according to former U.S. Attorney Leonard Boyle.
NEW HAVEN — A man faces up to 30 years in prison Wednesday after he admitted to organizing a shooting against a rival gang that left a man paralyzed, according to an official with the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Asante Gaines, 24, of Bridgeport, is the last man of six to be sentenced in connection with the shooting. He is scheduled to be sentenced at 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to Tom Carson, a spokesperson with the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Gaines pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity as well as attempted murder and aiding and abetting, which is in violation of the Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering statute.
U.S. Attorney Vanessa Roberts Avery asked that Gaines be sentenced to 25 years in prison. Gaines’ lawyer, Jeffrey Kestenbrand, requested that Gaines be sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison.
Gaines, also known as “Santi,” is a reputed member of the “Green Homes Boyz,” or “GHB/Hotz,” gang based in the Charles F. Greene Homes Housing Complex, according to former U.S. Attorney Leonard Boyle.
On Jan. 27, 2020, Gaines helped other GHB/Hotz members and members of the “Original North End,” an allied gang, attempt to kill members of a rival gang in a brazen afternoon shooting in front of the state courthouse on Golden Hill Street, Boyle previously said.
About 20 shots were fired at four victims, leaving one victim paralyzed and another with gunshot wounds in their back, shoulder and wrist.
Though Gaines was not one of the actual shooters, Avery said that Gaines coordinated the attack.
“Gaines rallied his GHB gang members and O.N.E. allies to help him commit the planned and very public assassinations,” Avery wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “Gaines was not concerned that the planned murder was going to occur during daylight hours, at a public courthouse with judicial marshals, police officers, lawyers, defendants, their family and friends and four Connecticut Superior Court judges.”
Avery said Gaines was seeking public acknowledgment of these assassinations.
Kestenbrand argued in a sentencing memorandum that Gaines’ association with the wrong crowd and decision to join GHB were not surprising
Gaines’ father was absent from his life. His mother then got a divorce from his stepfather, and Gaines lived temporarily with his grandmother and friends in various towns before landing at a homeless shelter in Ansonia, Kestenbrand wrote in Gaines’ sentencing memorandum.
When Gaines’ mother got an apartment in Bridgeport, Gaines was bullied at school and changed to fit in. He joined GHB and has been in and out of jail since, Kestenbrand wrote.
In August 2020, a federal grand jury indicted six men, including Gaines, on charges connected with the January 2020 shooting.
Tyiese Warren was sentenced to 40 years in prison, Marquis Isreal was sentenced to 17 years and both Diome Blackwell and Laheem Jones were each sentenced to 15 years. Destine Calderon was sentenced to more than eight years last month.