Two men tied to violent CT drug gang face up to life in prison after racketeering convictions
The first two gangsters to be tried under a massive law enforcement effort to stamp out drug-fueled slayings and other crimes that have plagued Bridgeport have been convicted of racketeering and face sentences of up to life in prison.
Joshua “Lor Heavy” Gilbert, 22, and Lorenzo “Zo” Carter, 29 were charged as members of O.N.E., the Original North End gang, and accused, among other things, of participating in two murders that were planned as retaliation against rivals in a continuing battle for control of drug sales.
The two men are among dozens charged in a far reaching federal, state and local police investigation of gang violence following a brazen, noontime assassination attempt outside the busy state Superior Court on Golden Hill Street.
In January 2020, a group allied with the O.N.E gang pumped dozens of shots into a car containing four members of a rival gang, in retaliation for the killing of a northside gangster by one of the rivals the night before.
The attack scattered shell casings in the crowded street and left 23 bullet holes in just the front windshield of the parked Chevrolet carrying the victims. All four were hit, two seriously. One was paralyzed and a second victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds to his back, shoulder and wrist.
Under the federal racketeering or RICO charge, Gilbert and Carter were charged with participating in a continuing criminal enterprise, the purpose of which was to further drug sales by committing crimes like killing rivals, robbing drug dealers, selling drugs, stealing cars for use in other crimes and using social media to plan and brag about their crimes.
Carter was charged in 2018 in a O.N.E. plot to steal a jeep in New York to use in a succession of tragically bungled killing plots.
In the first, they planned to gun down rivals who they had learned through social media were at a delicatessen on Stratford Avenue in Bridgeport. Federal prosecutors said the deli murder plan fell apart.
But, they said, four days later, Carter and others in his O.N.E. crew drove the stolen Jeep to Stratford and Union Avenues in Bridgeport where they shot and killed innocent bystander Len Smith, 25, who they mistook for a rival gang member. They also shot and seriously wounded a friend of Smith’s, who was sitting with him in a parked car.
Carter and his accomplices took the Jeep to Indian Well State Park in Shelton and burned it to conceal evidence of the killing, prosecutors said.
A year later, prosecutors tied Gilbert to another car stolen from New York that was later implicated in multiple shots fired incidents in Bridgeport linked to O.N.E.
In one, the mother of a rival gangster was shot outside her home. In another, gang members. In another, the stolen car was linked to gunfire at the P.T. Barnum projects and then drove to Newfield Avenue in Bridgeport where prosecutors said Gilbert and other O.N.E. members shot and killed Ty’Quess “Breezo” Moore, 18.
Prosecutors said Gilbert and Carter, along with other O.N.E. members bragged about their crimes on social media where they and others starred in videos in which they brandished guns, celebrated gang culture and talked about murdered rivals.
The federal jury in Bridgeport found Gilbert and Carter guilty of racketeering conspiracy. At sentencing, which is not scheduled, they each faces a maximum term of imprisonment for life. The two have been incarcerated without bail since 2021.
A separate trial on similar charges of three rival gangsters is underway in New Haven, where it was moved for security reasons.