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Six members of a Sunbury Village-based street gang have been charged with operating a criminal enterprise that is accused of carrying out multiple shootings – including two homicides – along with committing burglary, intimidating witnesses, possessing numerous firearms and fraudulently obtaining more than $125,000 in pandemic relief funds from the federal government, authorities said.
Eight others have been charged for their role in helping the organization, known as the Gotti Boy Movement (GBM), perpetrate the COVID-related financial scam, according to Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina and Pemberton Township Police Chief David King.
Those accused of running GBM were charged with racketeering, a first-degree crime that alleges they conspired to commit violent crimes to further their criminal enterprise, said Coffina and King who named the main suspects as:
- Tayron Brown, 25, of Heather Street in Pemberton Township;
- Kavon Carter, 24, of Rancocas Road in Mount Holly;
- Brandon Clifton, 23, of White Pine Court in Pemberton Township;
- Javon Forman, 21, of Delap Court in Pemberton Township;
- Kyree Weathers, 24, of Lawrence Drive in Pemberton Township, and;
- Sylas Young, 19, of Cornell Avenue in Pemberton Township
The criminal actions identified in support of the racketeering charge began in September, 2014, when shots were fired at a Pemberton Township police officer who was sitting in a cruiser in Sunbury Village, Coffina and King said. Brown and Carter are alleged to have participated in the shooting.
Clifton is waiting to be tried on murder charges for the March 2017 fatal shooting of Shaquille Williams in Sunbury Village. Clifton’s co-defendant in that case, Douglas Lewis, was found guilty in September 2021 and sentenced to 58 years in New Jersey state prison.
Weathers is awaiting trial on a 2020 firearms charge. Forman was found guilty that same year of burglary and a weapons violation, and was charged in February 2021 with possession of an assault weapon with a 40-round magazine containing armor-piercing rounds.
Carter and Young have been charged in connection with the slaying of 18-year-old Yahsinn Robinson in April in Willingboro. Young was charged with murder and both he and Carter were charged with Conspiracy to commit murder and gang criminality.
A week later, in the same section of Willingboro, a woman was hit in the leg and a toddler was grazed across his backside by shots fired into their home. Young has been charged with both shootings.
Carter and Young have also been indicted on firearms charges from a separate incident earlier this year, and Forman was charged in October 2021 with witness tampering for making multiple threatening phone calls from the Burlington County Jail.
"The substantial charges we have brought against these members of the Gotti Boy Movement and their associates should make clear that we will not allow anyone to engage in indiscriminate gun violence and run roughshod over innocent people in Pemberton Township or any other part of Burlington County,” Coffina said. “Yahsinn Robinson’s family should be celebrating Christmas with him right now instead of mourning him, and babies should never be exposed to gunfire coming into their homes."
Carter, Clifton and Weathers have also been charged with promoting organized street crime. as has Brianna Scott, 28, of White Pine Court in Pemberton Township, Coffina and King said.
Scott and other defendants are alleged to be responsible for filing multiple fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications.
The investigation revealed that the scam yielded $124,996 in funds from PPP applications that were filed in the name of GBM members and their affiliates.
Carter allegedly submitted an application claiming he was a barber with an annual income of more than $105,000 in 2019, even though Carter was incarcerated throughout 2019, Coffina and King said. Carter received a check for nearly $21,000, as did five of his associates, they said.
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