Gang member accused of shooting three at baby shower sentenced to 32 years
The only reason Dontavius Sharkey's criminal record isn't longer, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Rose said, might be that he's spent so much of his adult life in custody for other crimes. Now he's going back to prison for decades longer.
Sharkey, 27, of Des Moines was sentenced Wednesday to 32 years in prison after being convicted in October on a number of federal firearm offenses. Prosecutors said Sharkey, a member of the C-Block street gang, possessed and regularly carried a number of weapons, including a pistol illegally modified to act as a machine gun, despite being ineligible due to prior felonies, and that he conspired with other associates to make illegal "straw purchases" of guns on his behalf.
At trial, Sharkey was found guilty of six of the eight charges against him, but he was notably acquitted of illegally possessing firearms on June 18, 2022. That's the day prosecutors said Sharkey, just four months into his supervised release on a previous gun conviction, opened fire on a rival gang member standing in a crowd at a baby shower, seriously injuring three minors.
Despite that verdict, Judge Rose said Wednesday she found the state had established "compelling" evidence that Sharkey was the shooter, a fact she took into account in calculating his sentence.
"The conduct here is staggeringly violent," she said. "That no lives were lost is a miracle."
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Sharkey did not address the court Wednesday, while defense attorney Jonathan Causey asked the judge for a sentence closer to the 60-month term Sharkey received in his previous gun case, saying that "it doesn't take 30 years for Mr. Sharkey to rehabilitate himself."
Prosecutors, though, asked Rose to throw the book at Sharkey.
"No interventions in the defendant's life have ever worked," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Herrera said. She warned that "(Sharkey) has shown over and over that he will stop at nothing to obtain guns that he will then use."
Sharkey has a long and tragic history with firearms. In 2012, the then-15-year-old Sharkey accidentally shot and killed his friend Corey Hamilton with a stolen gun he reportedly hadn't realized was loaded. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter and eventually received a suspended prison sentence.
Sentencing based on 'relevant conduct'
The Supreme Court has said judges may consider for sentencing not only conduct for which the defendant was not charged, but even actions for which he was acquitted. Rose accordingly found that Sharkey qualified for a sentencing enhancement for possessing firearms "in connection with another felony offense," overruling arguments by Causey that doing so is unconstitutional.
Rose also applied an enhancement for reckless endangerment, finding that while trying to flee from police serving a search warrant at his house, Sharkey dropped a loaded machine gun on the ground in a way that could have endangered nearby officers. She also noted that officers at the home found over 100 fentanyl pills and thousands of dollars in cash related to drug dealing.
But Rose also said Sharkey's sentence — 30 years in his current case, plus two more years for violating his prior conditions of release — would be just as long even if she did not consider the baby shower shooting. She cited his numerous past convictions as well as his lengthy record of discipline and assaults in custody, some just weeks prior to Wednesday's hearing.
"This is just a defendant that unfortunately is too dangerous to keep in the community any longer," she said.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines gang member sentenced to 32 years on gun charges
