A notorious Brooklyn street gang boss who deployed a violent squadron of crooks out of the Ebbets Field public housing complex was hit with 20 years behind bars Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court.
A reputed leader of the “Six Tre Outlaw Gangsta Disciples Folk Nation,” Devon Rodney pleaded guilty last year to a slew of racketeering, attempted murder, conspiracy and gun raps.
An offshoot of a Chicago-based outfit, Rodney’s 50-man crew operated out of a hulking apartment complex named after the iconic baseball stadium that preceded it at the corner of Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place.
Rodney, 26, and his criminal colleagues helped plunge the once-quaint home of the Brooklyn Dodgers into a vice- and violence-plagued hell, prosecutors said.
“The defendant led the Folk Nation gang in committing senseless acts of violence, including shootings and robberies, which terrorized the residents of the Ebbets Field Houses in Brooklyn,” said US Attorney Loretta Lynch in a statement after the sentencing.
She highlighted a 2008 incident in which a botched hit ordered by Rodney resulted in the non-fatal shooting of a young bystander.
“The gang shooting of an innocent 10-year-old girl attending a neighborhood block party highlights the moral depravity of the gang life,” Lynch said.
In addition to ordering hits on rival hoodlums who strayed onto his terrain, prosecutors said Rodney orchestrated a range of other crimes including armed robberies of expensive jewelry stores.
Facing upwards of 30 years behind bars, Rodney told Judge Nicholas Garaufis that he was remorseful for his ugly tenure as the top of Folk Nation and that he hoped to re-enter society as a reformed man.
“I’d like to apologize to all the people I hurt — I’d like to apologize to my mother,” he said, noting that the absence of his father at a young age helped to propel him down a dark path.
“Sometimes I wonder how it all turned out like this,” he said as his mother sobbed in the court gallery.
Resigned to a lengthy term, Rodney’s lawyer lobbied Garaufis for a sentence of 24 ½ years in prison.
But the jurist cut Rodney a break and gave him an even 20. Garaufis acknowledged the heinous nature of Rodney’s offenses but said he was confident that he could rehabilitate himself behind bars with the support of his family.
“There is no reason you can’t be a good member of society despite this horrible beginning to your adulthood,” Garaufis said.
Rodney turned to the roughly 20 friends and family gathered in court and said “I love you” before disappearing into custody.