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Sheldon “Thottie” Mays, 23, was among eight members of a street gang at the Curries Woods public housing complex in Greenville who rolled up on the victim in two vehicles, seeking revenge for a previous incident, as he walked down a city street in August 2020.
The Tay Tay Shrimp Gang members parked in the middle of the street, hopped out and descended on the victim. They were punching and kicking him, authorities said, when Mays stabbed him, inflicting life-threatening injuries.
Mays and the others ended up taking plea deals from the government rather than risk the potential consequences of a trial conviction.
Mays and two fellow gang bangers were charged in state court earlier this year with murder, among other counts, for a shooting on Union Street between Martin Luther King Drive and Ocean Avenue that left one man dead and four others wounded in June 2020.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty sentenced Mays to three years of supervised release for the stabbing.
Sellinger credited special agents and task force officers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Newark Field Division, Jersey City police, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office and the Hudson County Department of Corrections with the investigation leading to the plea and sentencing.
The arrests stem from what's known as the Jersey City Violent Crime Initiative (VCI), which Sellinger called a “collaborative, multi-agency program designed to combine the resources of New Jersey’s federal, state, and local law enforcement to identify, target, and prosecute violent offenders and criminal organizations."
Participating along with his office, the DEA, FBI and ATF are U.S. Marshals, city police, the Hudson County prosecutor's and sheriff's offices, the state parole board and the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations and Intelligence Center/Real Time Crime Center.
Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracey Agnew of Sellingers Criminal Division in Trenton.
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