By Maya Rao
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Giovanni Walker looks out his solid cell door in a new prison unit that is part of the gang violence reduction measures at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Wash. (AP photo) |
PHILIADELPHIA — The retrial of two reputed Camden leaders of the Bloods gang on murder and attempted-murder charges ended yesterday morning when one defendant admitted he directed the shootings from his jail cell and a second confessed to pulling the trigger.
Tarell “Trigger” Ambrose and Shawn “Shorty Roc” Cook pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Burlington County to aggravated manslaughter in the Feb. 15, 2006, killing of LaVonne Adkins, and attempted murder in the shooting of Maurice Brown hours later in Camden.
Cook also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the shooting of Adkins’ older brother, Eric, who was not originally a target but who was present during the ambush in front of their Willingboro home.
Late yesterday, Shelly Scott, mother of LaVonne and Eric Adkins, said in an e-mail that she felt ecstasy amid sorrow over missing her son.
“I am glad I don’t have to go through the trial again,” she said. “The drudging through the swamp is partially done. The weight is off my shoulders.”
It was to have been the second day of jury selection in a case that ended in mistrial in June after an unidentified person sought to intimidate a juror.
Ambrose and Cook, both 26, faced spending the rest of their lives in prison if a jury found they had played a role in the shootings of the three men, all teenagers at the time.
Now, they could be released in time to live out their middle-age years.
Under the plea agreements entered before Judge John Almeida, Ambrose will be sentenced to 22 years in prison and Cook will receive 30.
The judge will formally sentence the men, on June 12 for Ambrose and June 19 for Cook.
“While my office recognizes that there will be other gang members who will seek to fill the void created by their long-term incarceration, those same individuals should be well-aware that law enforcement will continue to seek them out and have them join their colleagues in state prison,” Prosecutor Robert Bernardi said.
The men became the seventh and eighth to plead guilty out of nine people charged with participating in the shootings. One of them was Mount Laurel resident Brown, now 21, who previously testified that he drove a carful of Bloods to shoot the Adkins brothers.
Another, Nina Sheppard, admitted in February - in exchange for a five-year jail sentence and her court testimony - that she relayed boyfriend Ambrose’s killing orders during a jail visit to Cook and Joseph “G.I.” Townsend.
Townsend, who was 17 at the time of the attacks, will be tried separately as an adult.
Ambrose admitted in court yesterday that he issued an order from the Camden County Jail for Brown to be killed after the Mount Laurel man provided information to authorities that helped land Ambrose behind bars for his role in an unrelated shooting.
The reputed four-star general of the G-Shine set of the Bloods also confessed to directing 18-year-old LaVonne Adkins’ killing. Prosecutors allege the Bloods marked him as “food,” or for execution, after he skipped gang meetings.
Cook, said to be a three-star general, acknowledged he pulled the trigger on all three victims.
In entering their pleas, the men were not asked to give authorities information or testimony about Townsend’s alleged role. The defendants did not indicate that their actions were part of gang activity and they did not acknowledge the role of anyone else.
“I would say that Mr. Cook was willing to accept responsibility and plead guilty even prior to this date, but the matter couldn’t be resolved until all co-defendants agreed to plead guilty,” said Jill Cohen, Cook’s attorney.
Michael Riley, who represents Ambrose, said that the decision had been an ongoing process and that his client had “determined that it was something he wanted to do, so we went ahead and have been speaking to the prosecutors, and the numbers came together and that was that.”
On Monday, about 260 potential jurors were summoned to the courthouse. A judge had approved the rare measure of using an anonymous jury after someone approached a panelist in the first trial and asked, “Are you scared to wear that juror badge?”
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