City man guilty in restaurant robbery

NEW HAVEN — A city man pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge stemming from the April 2015 attempted robbery of a New Haven restaurant during which an employee was shot, according to federal and city authorities.

Tythrone Ford, 27, of New Haven, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer in New Haven to one count of attempted interference with commerce by robbery, federal authorities said in a statement.

The incident occurred at about 11 p.m. on April 11,

2015, when Ford and two other men entered the Smokin’ Wings restaurant on Congress Avenue and demanded money at gunpoint, federal authorities said in the statement, citing court documents and statements made in court.

“One of Ford’s associates subsequently discharged a firearm and shot a female employee in the stomach,” federal authorities said in the statement. “Ford and his associates then fled the restaurant. Responding New Haven Police officers subsequently located a .22 caliber revolver in a nearby trash can,” federal authorities said.

Further, about eight hours prior to the Smokin’ Wings robbery, two of Ford’s associates, armed with handguns, entered Sapiaos Market, on Lexington Avenue in Bridgeport, and demanded money, federal authorities said. “During the attempted robbery, the owner of the market, Jose Salgado, was shot and killed. At the time, Ford was waiting in a car outside of the market.”

“Forensic analysis of the revolver found in the trash can in New Haven, and projectiles collected from the scene of both attempted robberies, revealed that the gun was used in both shootings,” federal authorities said in the statement. “DNA collected from the gun revealed that both Ford and one of his associates possessed the gun.”

The charge Ford pleaded guilty to carries a maximum of up to 20 years in prison. Meyer scheduled sentencing for Dec.14, 2021, federal authorities said in the statement.

Ford has been in custody since his arrest on Dec. 10, 2019. Authorities did not provide the names of the other suspects.

Ford, then 21, pleaded guilty in 2014 to a reduced charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree assault in exchange for a sentence of two years in prison in connection with a shooting in which a toddler was struck in the stomach as he sat on a porch on Kensington Street on Oct. 10, 2012. Authorities confirmed Ford was a person convicted in that case; Ford denied he was the shooter.

A second man in the case of the toddler shooting received a sentence of four years in prison. Then-Mayor John DeStefano Jr. described the shooting as “incredibly cold.”

The cold case investigation in the Smokin’ Wings incident was conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the New Haven Police Department, with the assistance of the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Peter D. Markle, Jocelyn C. Kaoutzanis, and Nathaniel J. Gentile through the Justice’s Department’s Project Safe Neighborhoods program and Project Longevity, according to authorities.