New Haven Man Gets 6 Years For Drugs, Assaulting Federal Officer: Feds

NEW HAVEN, CT — Six months after being released from federal custody in 2019, after serving a six-year sentence on a firearm conviction, Shawn Hill, 38, of New Haven, was indicted for heroin and crack trafficking, according to the Justice Department.

Tuesday, after pleading guilty in 2020, he was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 78 months in prison for distributing crack and heroin, according to U.S. Attorney for Connecticut Vanessa Roberts Avery. Hill also pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal correctional officer while he was locked up at USP Canaan, a high-security federal prison in Waymart, PA.

According to Justice, court documents and statements made in court, in March 2016, Hill was sentenced to serve 72 months at USP Canaan, followed by three years of supervised release, for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

In June 2017, a prison officer found a 6-inch metal “ice pick” style weapon in Hill’s left sock, per the U.S. Attorney. An hour later, while being taken to the prison’s Special Housing Unit, he "slipped his arm out of the restraints and struck a correctional officer in the head" injuring him, per Avery.

Three months later, a grand jury in the Middle District of Pennsylvania returned an indictment charging Hill with one count of assaulting a federal correctional officer, and one count of possessing contraband in prison.

In April 2019, after he had completed his original 72-month sentence, Hill was released on bond while his Pennsylvania charges were pending. Days after his release, Hill was heard over a court-authorized wiretap during an investigation being conducted by the FBI’s New Haven Safe Streets/Gang Task Force and New Haven Police Department. That investigation surrounded drug trafficking and "related acts of violence by members, former members and associates of the “Island Brothers” street gang in New Haven," per prosecutors. Avery said that the "evidence developed during the investigation confirmed that Hill was involved" in heroin and crack cocaine trafficking.

On July 9, 2019, a grand jury in New Haven returned a 15-count indictment charging 25 people as a result of that investigation and five months later, Hill was added as a defendant in a superseding indictment. Arrested on Nov. 26, 2019, his Pennsylvania case was transferred to Connecticut to for prosecution.

On Sept. 22, 2020, Hill pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack and heroin, and one count of assault on a correctional officer, per Justice.

Tuesday, a federal judge sentenced him to 57 months for the narcotics and assault offenses, and a consecutive 21 months of imprisonment for violating the conditions of his supervised release, prosecutors said. Hill also must spend the first six months of his supervised release in a halfway house, and the next six months on curfew with electronic monitoring, according to Avery.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s New Haven Safe Streets/Gang Task Force, New Haven Milford, Hamden, and East Haven police departments, Connecticut State Police, Connecticut Department of Correction, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony E. Kaplan, Elena L. Coronado and Tara E. Levens.