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Press Release
Press Release
Earlier today, a federal jury in Brooklyn returned a guilty verdict against Shakeem Boykins charging him with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. The verdict followed a five-day trial before United States District Judge Edward R. Korman. When sentenced, Boykins faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the verdict.
“The danger posed by a felon possessing a firearm was brought into sharp focus in this case, where the defendant shot a woman simply for being in a certain part of the Pink Houses against his wishes,” stated United States Attorney Donoghue. This Office and its law enforcement partners will do everything in our collective power to stop gun violence, including prosecuting those who illegally possess guns to the fullest extent of the law.” Mr. Donoghue expressed his grateful appreciation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), New York Field Office, Safe Streets Task Force, which is comprised of FBI special agents and New York City Police Department (NYPD) detectives.
The evidence at trial established that on the afternoon of October 5, 2017, outside the Louis H. Pink Houses on Linden Boulevard in East New York, Boykins approached a woman with whom he and his friends had been in a dispute, and told her to leave the area. When she refused, Boykins rode away on a bicycle and returned with a handgun. Boykins then shot the woman twice at close range, striking her in the left leg. A .40 caliber cartridge casing was recovered at the scene. Subsequently, the NYPD recovered from his associates the .40 Glock semiautomatic handgun that Boykins had used in the shooting.
As presented at trial, Boykins was convicted in 2013 of a felony offense in Queens County Supreme Court. In addition, he was convicted in federal court in 2015 of being a member of a heroin and crack cocaine drug-trafficking conspiracy based in the Pink Houses.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.
The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Organized Crime and Gangs Section. Assistant United States Attorneys James P. McDonald and Margaret E. Gandy are in charge of the prosecution.
The Defendant:
SHAKEEM BOYKINS
Age: 24
Brooklyn, New York
E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 18-CR-338 (ERK)
John Marzulli
Tyler Daniels
United States Attorney’s Office
(718) 254-6323