Man charged with plotting murder from prison rejects plea offer, will wait for trial
Jul. 13—A New London man charged with orchestrating an attempted murder from prison has rejected an offer from the state to serve an additional 18 years in prison for his alleged crimes.
Instead, he'll wait at least a year to face a jury.
Shaquan Lee-Seales, who already is serving a 15-year sentence for shooting and killing bystander Gilberto Olivencia during a drug dispute in 2015, was charged last September with ordering another murder through phone calls he made from prison.
During a virtual court hearing Tuesday, Lee-Seales appeared on video from prison and turned down the plea offer from Senior Assistant State's Attorney Stephen M. Carney, which would have added 18 years to his current sentence.
His attorney, Sebastian Desantis, said his client rejected the deal "because he is innocent" and will instead wait to face trial, which could take more than a year to begin.
Lee-Seales, 27, pleaded guilty in 2018 to first-degree manslaughter with a firearm and third-degree robbery and is serving his sentence at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield. While there, he allegedly ordered three men to shoot and kill his son's mother, Nicole Rivera-Ramos, and her boyfriend, Demetrius Watley.
On Nov. 24, 2019, at 11:28 p.m., a bullet pierced the second-floor window of an apartment on Third Avenue in New London and traveled through a bedroom where three girls were sleeping and lodged into the wall of an adjacent bedroom. Rivera-Ramos and Watley lived six doors away from the Londonberry Gardens apartment that was hit.
An arrest warrant affidavit alleges that Lee-Seales ordered the shooting in a series of calls from prison because he was upset that Rivera-Ramos was letting Watley tell Lee-Seales' son he has two fathers, and was not taking the child to visit Lee-Seales more often.
His attorney maintains that Lee-Seales wasn't involved in the plot.
Judge Hillary B. Strackbein, who presided over the hearing Tuesday, said Lee-Seales won't face a jury anytime soon but the court added his name to the trial list Tuesday.
"The trial list is very long, so it's safe to say it will be at least a year," Strackbein said.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant delays in the justice system in 2020 and 2021, suspending jury trials.
First, the court will try Sergio Correa, who is charged with killing three people in Griswold in 2017. The court is in the lengthy process of selecting a jury for that trial, which is expected to begin in November.
After that trial, the court will prioritize two cases in which attorneys have filed speedy trial motions.
Desantis said he and Lee-Seales are "willing to wait (for a trial), although kind of reluctant about it," he said. "But there aren't many other choices right now."
In September, Sakye Reels-Felder was charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, illegal discharge of a firearm, first-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor in connection to the plot. A judge ordered in March that Reels-Felder remain held on a $1 million bond. He is scheduled to appear in court next on Aug. 12.
Police have also charged Lee-Seales' brother, who was a juvenile at the time, in connection with the shooting, along with Kion Wilbur and Nitasia Sutton, both of New London.
