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    Saturday, April 27, 2024

    Former New London man found guilty of ordering failed double-murder plot from prison

    Shaquan Lee-Seales, shown in a June 2016 file photo from an unrelated murder case, was found guilty on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024, of masterminding a failed plot from prison to have his son’s mother and her boyfriend killed. (The Day file photo)

    A New London Superior Court jury Tuesday afternoon found a 29-year-old city man guilty of masterminding a failed plot from prison to have his son’s mother and her boyfriend killed.

    The six-member jury, which began deliberations late Thursday afternoon before resuming again on Tuesday morning, found Shaquan Lee-Seales — already serving a 15-year prison term for manslaughter — guilty on all counts he faced: two counts each of conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to attempted murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree assault, accessory to attempted first-degree assault and one each of risk of injury to a minor and inciting injury to a person.

    The verdict came after a weeklong trial prosecuted by Assistant State’s Attorney Stephen Carney, who praised the jury’s “hard work.”

    “They clearly considered the evidence carefully,” Carney said.

    He added his office would wait to craft a sentence recommendation after a pre-sentence investigation is complete.

    Lee-Seales faces decades more in prison when he is sentenced on April 30.

    He was serving his sentence for a manslaughter conviction at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield when New London police said he ordered the killings in a series of recorded phone calls. Police said he was upset that his son’s mother was telling his son he had two fathers and also wasn’t taking him to visit Lee-Seales in prison enough.

    At 11:29 p.m. on Nov. 24, 2019, police received a report of a gunshot at a residence on Third Avenue in New London to find a bullet had pierced a second-floor window and traveled through a bedroom where three young girls were sleeping. No injuries were reported.

    An investigation by New London police led to the arrest of Lee-Seales, along with a group of others involved in the shooting, including Sakye Reels-Felder of Mashantucket. Reel-Felder, 23, the alleged shooter, is serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty last year to attempted first-degree assault in connection with the murder plot.

    Lee-Seales was found guilty in 2018 of killing Gilberto Olivencia, a 29-year-old father of two children, in New London during a drug dispute in 2015. His sentence in that case ends in 2031.

    Judge Shari Murphy on Tuesday raised Lee-Seales’ bonds in his latest case from $400,000 to $1 million.

    j.penney@theday.com

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