Bridgeport Man Pleads Guilty To Racketeering

BRDIGEPORT, CT — Another gang member involved in a 2018 homicide has pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, according to a statement from Leonard C Boyle, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. Shakale Brantley, aka "Charlie Wilson," Kellz," and "Man Man," 21, of Bridgeport, pleaded guilty to the charge connected to a gang-related murder in Bridgeport's East End in August 2018.

According to prosecutors, Brantley was a member of the Original North End (O.N.E.), a gang based in the Trumbull Gardens area of Bridgeport. The gang committed violent acts against rival gangs, including the East End gang, the East Side gang, and the PT Barnum gang.

O.N.E. members also robbed drug dealers, sold drugs, laundered money, and stole cars that they then used the cars to commit crimes, according to prosecutors.

Brantley and other O.N.E. members stole a white Jeep Grand Cherokee Aug. 8, 2018, in Newburgh, NY, and drove it back to Bridgeport. In the early morning hours of Aug. 13, 2018, O.N.E. members drove the stolen Jeep to Union Avenue in Bridgeport where they shot and killed Len Smith, 25, who they mistook for a rival East End group member, and shot and seriously wounded Smith's female companion, both of whom were seated in a parked car, according to prosecutors

Brantley and others then transported the Jeep to Indian Wells State Park in Shelton where they burned the vehicle in an effort to destroy evidence of the murder.

Brantley and other O.N.E. members and associates attacked a marijuana dealer and stole marijuana from him in Bridgeport in 2018 and Stratford in 2018, according to prosecutors.

Brantley was arrested on federal charges in March 2020. While he was in prison, he attempted to solicit others to kill the victim of the marijuana robberies, who Brantley had learned had become a federal witness, to prevent the witness from testifying against him, according to prosecutors.

Brantley wanted his associates to kill the robbery victim and then cover his nose with fentanyl to make it appear as if he overdosed, prosecutors said.

Brantley pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity and one count of solicitation of witness tampering. Brantley faces a maximum prison term of 35 years at sentencing.