In phone conversations from prison and in a letter to his brother, who was also in prison at the time, state prosecutors claim Shaquan Lee-Seales tried, but failed, to orchestrate the killing of his son’s mother and her boyfriend.

In closing arguments of the week-long trial that ended Wednesday, Assistant State’s Attorney Stephen Carney told jurors in a New London courtroom that the hit 29-year-old Lee-Seales ordered came in the form of coded messages rather than outright statements.

“He knows he’s being listened to whenever he’s on a call,” Carney said.

Carney urged jurors to use their “common sense” when listening to the profanity-laden series of phone calls of Lee-Seales from prison, including one made from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, where Lee-Seales is serving a 15-year prison sentence for shooting and killing a man during a drug dispute in 2015.

In one call on Nov. 24, 2019, Lee-Seales says things like “yo, I really want you to go (expletive) up my baby momma right now,” and “tell Bless to send that little (expletive) ‘Sakye’ over there right now. I’m not playing (expletive). I don’t give a (expletive). Sling that. Empty it.”

Sakye Reels-Felder and Bless Seales, Lee-Seales’ brother, the two men referenced by nickname in the Nov. 24, 2019, phone call, were among the four people arrested by New London police in connection with a shooting that same night. A shot was fired into the bedroom of a Third Avenue apartment in New London, six doors away from where Lee-Seales’ son, his mother, Nicole Rivera-Ramos, and her boyfriend, Demetrius Watley, lived.

No one was injured but four people were later convicted for their varying roles in the shooting. Reels-Felder, the alleged shooter, is serving an eight-year prison sentence. Lee-Seales faces 10 felony charges in connection with the shooting, including two counts each of conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder. He previously rejected an offer of 18 additional years in prison in favor of the trial.

If the phone calls were not enough to prove guilt, Carney said a damning letter Lee-Seales wrote to his brother Bless Seales in 2020 would “eliminate any lack of clarity.” In the letter, Lee-Seales states, “and have Sosa take care of that dog and make sure this time make sure he go to the pound and be put to sleep this time,” Carney said.

Carney claims it is further evidence that Lee-Seales was still intent on killing Watley, the boyfriend of his son’s mother who also goes by the name “dog dog.”

Attorney Sebastian DeSantis, who represents Lee-Seales, told jurors on Wednesday that the language used in the phone calls could easily be misconstrued, that these are Black youth with a “different way of communicating.” DeSantis argued that ordering a hit on Watley and Rivera-Ramos would put his own son in jeopardy and that would be “counterintuitive,” considering Lee-Seales is angry, in part, over the fact he wants to spend more time with his son.

DeSantis argued that prosecutors are lacking enough evidence for a conviction and have concocted theories to fit what little evidence they do have.

“It’s not you’re job to connect the dots for the government,” DeSantis told jurors. “Mr. Lee-Seales starts with a presumption of innocence.”

“There is no grand conspiracy,” DeSantis added.

The six-member jury was expected to start deliberations late Wednesday afternoon.

g.smith@theday.com