Does Connecticut prosecute gun offenders? Prosecutors say statistics don't tell the whole story
May 4—When Franc Gjergjaj of East Lyme was arrested in connection with the Feb. 17, 2021, shooting death of 17-year-old Ronde Ford in New London, he faced four criminal charges: carrying a pistol without a permit, having a weapon in a motor vehicle, tampering with physical evidence and interfering with an officer.
Police allege Gjergjaj, then 22, shot and killed Ford in the middle of Grand Street.
Gjergjaj and his two co-defendants never did face charges related to Ford's killing. When Gjergjaj was sentenced on Aug. 23, 2023, he pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle and walked out of the courtroom without a prison sentence.
Of the hundreds of court cases that flow into the state courtrooms each year, the majority end with plea agreements between prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Gjergjaj's case was no different.
Evidence showed he was likely the victim of a robbery by Ford and the two other men and that he shot Ford in self-defense during a struggle. He deserved no prison time, his lawyer William Gerace successfully argued.
Critics would point to it as one more example of the state's gun laws not being enforced. Gjergjaj did, after all, have a gun and did not have a permit for that gun but was not prosecuted for it. His case was plea-bargained down to a charge that did not require a mandatory prison sentence.
Statistics compiled annually by the Office of Legislative Research show that between 2011 and 2022 a high percentage of some of the most common gun-related offenses ended without a conviction. For example, of the 601 cases in 2022 where an individual was facing the charge of criminal possession of a firearm, ammunition or electronic device, 61% were either dismissed or not prosecuted, known as a nolle.
During the same year, the courts entered nolles or dismissals on 66%, or 428 of the 648 cases, of the charge of carrying a pistol without a permit.
The numbers are sometimes cited as evidence that the state ― which prides itself as having some of the strictest gun laws in the country ― is not using those laws.
Chief State's Attorney Patrick Griffin disputes the argument that gun laws are not being prosecuted and said in reaching a disposition, prosecutors will seek conviction for the most serious and readily provable offense. The Division of Criminal Justice prosecutes "cases and not charges," he said, a reference to the OLR statistics.
If prosecutors choose to not prosecute an individual gun charge in, for instance, a first-degree robbery with a firearm case, it does not negate the gun charge built into the first-degree robbery statute, he said.
"That's where the stats don't reflect the facts," Griffin said. "We are in fact vigorously prosecuting the the gun laws we have in the state of Connecticut."
A study by the Division of Criminal Justice that looked at case outcomes shows that in an evaluation of 1,688 gun cases disposed of in 2021 and 2022, 77% resulted in a conviction and 71% in a felony conviction. Each of those cases involved people who had previously been convicted of felony offenses and were charged with criminal possession of a firearm, ammunition or electronic device and/or criminal possession of a pistol or revolver.
Individuals with a conviction of criminal possession of a firearm are 8,000% more likely than someone with no criminal history to be arrested for a shooting, DCJ statistics show.
State Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, a Stonington police detective, said many of the gun-related crimes are committed by people who are committing other crimes or face other charges. Howard said he understands that during the plea bargaining process prosecutors will seek a conviction on the most serious crimes.
That doesn't, however, discount the fact that many of the gun-related crimes remain unprosecuted while his colleagues in the General Assembly push for more gun laws, Howard said.
Howard voted against the latest update to the state's gun laws last year, in part citing laws on the books that were not prosecuted.
"Overwhelmingly, the gun crimes we have are committed by people who are not legal gun owners," Howard said. "It doesn't make sense to continue to regulate legal gun owners when they are not involved in gun crimes."
A sampling of cases
The Day, in an unscientific survey of gun-related arrests in the region, found that many, but not all of the people charged with a gun-related offenses in 2021 were ultimately convicted of at least one gun-related offense. The outcomes vary by case but often the final disposition includes a nolle of some of the crimes and a "concurrent" sentence, in which a defendant with multiple convictions is sentenced on each charge but serves all of the sentences at the same time.
Here is a sampling of some recent cases:
Jevon Scholl, convicted in Rhode Island of carrying a pistol without a permit, was arrested on Nov. 28, 2022, in connection with an armed home invasion in Norwich. He was charged with three counts of risk of injury to a minor, home invasion, criminal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of a high-capacity magazine, illegal possession of an assault rifle and third-degree assault. On April 2, 2024, Scholl was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to home invasion and illegal possession of an assault weapon. The other charges were nolled. The home invasion carries a 10-year minimum mandatory sentence so the 5-year prison sentence on the gun charge runs concurrent to the home invasion charge.
On May 9, 2023, Jamir Johnson of New London was sentenced to 17 years in prison for shooting a man in the head at close range during an argument. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter with a firearm. The one-year sentence for carrying a pistol without a permit is running concurrent to the manslaughter charge.
Andrew Cook was arrested at a Norwich boarding house on Feb. 21, 2021. Police said he was in possession of pipe bombs, high capacity magazines, body armor and an AR-15-style rifle with the serial number removed and a parts of an AR-15 where in place of a serial number was a stamp of a person holding up a middle finger with the words, "Here's your serial number."
In March, Cook pleaded no contest to the charges of criminal possession of a firearm and illegal bomb manufacturing and pleaded guilty to interfering with police. Sentencing is set for June, when he is expected to get 12 years in prison.
Melissa Kane, the board chairman and interim executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, said the focus of the organization is reducing gun violence in the state. Kane said the group lobbies for state laws that aid in that mission. In 2019, the state had 181 firearm deaths, and 61% were suicides.
Prosecution of gun laws plays an important role in deterring gun crimes and deaths, Kane said.
While violent crimes committed with guns get a lot of attention, Kane said, the state's laws pertaining to things such as safe gun storage and firearm permitting are equally important.
"When people store their guns safely, there's less of a chance of those guns being stolen, used in a suicide or domestic violence situations," Kane said. "When you're talking about crimes involving firearms, I'm comfortable saying (prosecution of those crimes) is a deterrent."
Every case is different
New London County State's Attorney Paul Narducci said the decision on what to offer a defendant as part of a plea agreement is based on the circumstances of that case, and the details of each case differ. And while he declined to discuss the details of any individual case, Narducci said "all cases are fact dependent."
While some larger judicial districts, which handle more gun crimes, have dedicated gun dockets, New London has one of its assistant state's attorneys, Tom DeLillo, handle the bulk of the gun-related cases. Having one prosecutor deal with the majority of the gun crimes helps with consistency, Narducci said.
"One of the things that's really difficult to get out to the general public, even though you want to be consistent with your dispositions, is every case is different and the variables are almost innumerable," Narducci said.
For example, Narducci said if somebody committed an armed robbery and was carrying a pistol during the crime, that individual could be charged with some or all of the charges that include carrying a pistol without a permit, criminal possession of a firearm, weapon in a motor vehicle or carrying a dangerous weapon. There's a lot of crossover, he said. The focus of the prosecution will be on the armed robbery, he said.
"We do try to pick the charges that are representative of the type of crime it is," Narducci said.
A defendant with a long violent history is probably going to be charged with criminal possession of a firearm, which carries a mandatory minimum of two years in prison, versus carrying a pistol without a permit, which carries a mandatory minimum of one year, Narducci said. There are a host of other factors taken into account when negotiating a disposition, Narducci said.
If it is the offender's first crime, that person may be eligible for a diversionary program. The charges, therefore, would ultimately get dismissed by the court if terms of the program are met.
Prosecutors have some discretion if the only crime committed was something like a lack of a gun permit. If the person is not otherwise a criminal and had not used the gun during the commission of a crime, the charge might be substituted with a misdemeanor such as weapon in a motor vehicle, which does not have a mandatory prison term.
Other factors at play when making a plea offer are the strength of the case, the age of the defendant, whether there was a victim in the crime and whether the offender is "amenable to rehabilitation or is it somebody that's been through the system many times," Narducci said.
Prosecutors also pay attention to what the legislature has done in terms of laws addressing certain crimes. For example, a new "serious firearm offender" law recently passed by the legislature imposes more stringent release conditions for firearm offenders based based on previous convictions.
Michael Lawlor, a lawyer and former state representative who is a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, said the annual statistics from the Office of Legislative Research showing low conviction rates could be misleading.
Those stats are simply a snapshot of case outcomes in any given year but don't differentiate between individual cases, only charges, he said.
"The numbers alone don't tell the whole story since it is impossible to discern what an individual was charged with and what the person was convicted of or if a substitute charge replaced the original charge," Lawlor said. "If the final plea is a substitute charge, the original charge may appear as a dismissal.
Narducci said many cases, not just gun crimes, result in changes based on the evidence developed during the prosecution and often lead to fewer charges during the final disposition.
Gerace, the attorney who represented Franc Gjergjaj in the gun case, said his was a unique case and even in the instance of the initial gun possession charge, said the state would have had a hard time proving its case if it had gone to trial. The negotiations that took place before is client's plea included conversations about the "mitigating circumstances and weaknesses in the state's case," he said.
