Shooter to serve 4 years in prison

Victim left blind in one eye, face disfigured

NEW HAVEN — A 20-yearold New Haven resident has been sentenced to serve four years in prison for shooting another 20-year-old in the face three years ago at a gas station convenience store.

Charles Henderson opened fire at a Sunoco station on the corner of Foxon Boulevard and Quinnipiac Avenue during the morning rush hour, at about 8 a.m. on July 20, 2015, police said.

The victim was standing outside the entrance to the store when he was attacked.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney John P. Doyle Jr., who prosecuted Henderson, said during a court hearing before the sentencing that the victim “was taken to the hospital in critical condition with bullet fragments in his brain. He suffered permanent eye damage and facial deformities.”

Doyle said the shots were fired from a vehicle containing up to five people.

Although Henderson was just 17 at the time, Doyle objected to a motion by Senior Assistant Public Defender Alice Osedach to have the defendant treated as a youthful offender.

“I don’t think youthful offender status is appropriate,” Doyle told Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford. “I have a photo of this defendant off Facebook. He’s holding a firearm.”

Clifford said, “I know about the studies of the size of the brain and how kids act at that age. But the injury to this victim — he is blind in one eye, his face disfigured — are much too severe for me to grant youthful offender status.”

Clifford later imposed a sentence of 10 years in prison, to be suspended after serving four years, for first-degree assault/ discharge of a firearm. Clifford also imposed a three-year prison sentence for carrying a pistol without a permit but made that concurrent with the assault sen-

tence. After his release, Henderson will face three years of probation.

Osedach could not be reached for comment after the sentencing. Doyle acknowledged it was a serious case. But he noted Henderson’s young age at the time of the shooting.

Doyle credited “a great investigation by the New Haven Police Department’s Shooting Task Force.” He also noted, “After he (Henderson) was arrested, he gave a full confession. He said somebody handed him a gun and he fired out the window.”

According to the warrant, witnesses heard three or four gunshots. Police recovered a fired cartridge casing that was determined to be from a 9 mm Luger. Police were able to recover the gun.

Police also learned the car in which Henderson was a passenger, a black Honda Pilot, had been stolen from North Haven the day before the shooting. The car was recovered in the Newhallville section of New Haven.

Police detectives dusted the car for fingerprints and found five viable prints. Using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, one of the fingerprints was identified as being made by Henderson’s right middle finger, the warrant stated.

“I know about the studies of the size of the brain and how kids act at that age. But the injury to this victim — he is blind in one eye, his face disfigured — are much too severe for me to grant youthful offender status.”

— Judge Patrick J. Clifford

In addition, authorities intercepted recorded phone calls between the shooting victim and a prison inmate. During those conversations, the victim said that when he saw “Gunna,” known by police to be Henderson, he was going to kill Henderson.

Witnesses, including the victim, told police there was an ongoing feud between members of the

“Exit 8” group (living near Exit 8 of Interstate 91) and those in “the Ville” group, who lived in Newhallville. Henderson was reportedly a member of the R2 and “Starr Block” gangs from Newhallville.

The warrant quoted the victim telling police a companion told him shortly before the shooting that he had seen youths from “the Ville” in a car. The victim said he did not see who shot him.

The victim spent two months in the hospital, at which time he regained vision in his left eye. But he said he is permanently blind in his right eye and has suffered seizures as a result of the shooting.

Fourteen months after the shooting, investigators linked a DNA swab from the interior driver’s door of the Honda to Louis Stanford, who was 20 at the time of the crime. When questioned by police, he denied being involved with the shooting.

Police also heard from at least one witness that James Lee, 18 at the time of the shooting, was in the car when the shots were fired. Lee told police he had nothing to do with the crime and had only heard about it from TV news coverage.

Police later questioned another witness who said he was 100 percent sure that Henderson was the shooter, according to the warrant.

After Lee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree assault and carrying a pistol without a permit, he was sentenced to an eight-year prison term, to be suspended after he serves 30 months.

Stanford pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree assault and was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison.