Plea deal offered to Stamford man accused of attempted murder

STAMFORD — State prosecutors have offered a plea deal to a 24-year-old city man facing attempted murder charges in a shooting that police said stemmed from a car sale gone wrong.

Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel Cummings revealed the offer, which would see 24-year-old Jeff Etienne get no more than 15 years in prison in return to guilty pleas to charges of criminal attempt at murder and two counts of first-degree assault, during a disposition hearing held remotely at Stamford Superior Court on Monday.

Cummings said the state would also be asking for additional time in the form of special parole or probation following the incarceration as a part of the deal.

Stamford’s senior public defender Howard Ehring said he would relay the offer to his client, who wasn’t present at Monday’s hearing because of an apparent mixup with the Department of Corrections, over the next couple of weeks.

Etienne was arrested in November 2020 in connection to a shooting that left two men injured. Sgt. Sean Boeger wrote in an arrest affidavit at the time that Etienne was trying to return a car he had recently purchased from one of the men injured in the shooting.

When the man refused to accept the returned car, Etienne told him, “I’m gonna pop you,” according to the affidavit.

Later that day, according to the affidavit, the two men were driving down Fairfield Avenue when Etienne got out of a car in front of them and began shooting. One man, 33, suffered gunshot wounds to the shoulder and hand, while the second man, 23, was grazed by a bullet on his forearm.

According to the affidavit, Etienne was convicted of carrying a weapon in a motor vehicle in 2019 and was given a three-year suspended sentence with three years of probation. That felony conviction makes it a crime for him to be in possession of a firearm.

Etienne is next scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 27. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bond at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution.