Prosecutors bet on convicted killer as key witness in 'Choppa City' robbery trial

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, Raheem Gafari shot a fellow member of his Southeast street crew 13 times – killing him in broad daylight after an argument from a dice game days earlier festered into open threats of violence. This week, federal prosecutors hope his testimony will help them convict three other members of the crew accused of stealing more than $1 million at gunpoint from armored cars.

The three defendants – William Brock, Anthony Antwon McNair Jr., and Erin Sheffey – began trial late last month on robbery, conspiracy and firearms charges linked to the armed robberies of three Brink’s armored cars on Good Hope Road SE between October 2021 and March 2022. All three men are alleged members of the “Choppa City” street crew that operates in the area.

Federal prosecutors have marshaled dozens of witnesses against the men, including cell data and DNA experts who linked the defendants to the area where the robberies occurred and to a stolen car used in one incident that was later found partially burned. Prosecutors also called one of McNair’s former romantic partners, who identified him in surveillance footage from his distinctive walk.

One witness, however, drew far more scrutiny from the defense than the rest: Raheem Gafari, a 33-year-old “Choppa City” crew member who has been held at the D.C. Jail for more than two years following his arrest on murder charges for the killing of Davon Sullivan. Sullivan, 24, also allegedly a member of the crew, was gunned down in front of a house in the 2300 block of Green Street SE in May 2022.

Although prosecutors called Gafari as their second-to-last witness, concerns about his and other witnesses’ safety have prompted unusual security measures throughout the trial. Electronic devices have been entirely barred from the courtroom and everyone entering to watch the trial has been screened by court security officers. In pretrial hearings that were subsequently sealed, prosecutors said the defendants had attempted to bribe Gafari with $25,000 not to testify. When that didn’t work, they allegedly threatened to kill him and members of his family. On the stand, Gafari said he’d been stabbed twice by alleged associates of defendant William Brock before he was moved into protective custody in a different section of the D.C. Jail.

Despite the alleged threats against him, prosecutors acknowledged Gafari was a potentially difficult witness to rely on. His adult criminal history stretches back to a 2013 conviction for assault and possession of a prohibited weapon and includes multiple arrests in D.C. and Prince George’s County for assault, illegal firearm possession and possession with intent to distribute. Many of those cases were ultimately dropped without explanation. He was arrested in May 2015 on domestic violence charges, which were later dismissed. At the time of the robberies in 2021 and 2022, Gafari said he was lying low in Prince George’s County, because he was concerned there might be another domestic violence warrant for his arrest in D.C.

Pressed repeatedly by defense counsel about the fatal shooting of Sullivan in 2022, Gafari maintained he’d killed Sullivan, who he said was a former friend, because he believed he was going to get shot himself. He said he decided not to take the case to trial after discussing with his attorneys how a jury might view the shooting as “excessive” – Gafari shot Sullivan once in the back of the head and 12 more times while he was lying on the ground. Gafari, with little apparent emotion, explained he thought Sullivan was still moving.

“I wish it hadn’t happened that way,” he said.

Prosecutors told jurors they didn’t need to like Gafari; they only needed to believe he was on the inside when discussions about the robberies were taking place.

“Now you may ask – defense counsel will probably ask – why would the government present the testimony of a man like this? Why would the government present to you the testimony of a murderer?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Tepfer said during his opening statement. “The answer is pretty simple. This case is about a conspiracy among a violent street crew, and this crew, they have a code: no snitching. They don’t talk about what they do. They don’t talk about what they have done with people outside the crew. The people who know the details of what they get up to, it’s not police officers, it’s not priests or rabbis, it’s not wives or mothers. The people who know the details of this conspiracy are the men on the inside. They are men like Raheem Gafari.”

According to Gafari, the four men had known each other since most of them were in middle school and had grown up committing crimes on behalf of the “Choppa City” crew. That included dealing drugs, robbing other drug dealers and shooting up neighborhoods that were feuding with the gang. By late 2021, he said, the men were low on cash and one of the defendants, William Brock, had in mind a larger scheme: robbing armored cars outside banks in the neighborhood.

“There’s a big move,” Gafari said Brock told him. “It’s right in our face every day, we just don’t see it.”

The first robbery on Oct. 6, 2021, netted the group more than $100,000. But that was quickly spent, Gafari said, and more robberies were planned.

A second robbery two months later, on Dec. 8, 2021, left the armored car driver with a facial fracture from being pistol-whipped but the men with no money to show for it – they’d grabbed an empty bag.

The third robbery, on March 2, 2022, hauled in more than $1 million.

After that, Gafari said, the men celebrated. They flashed cash around the neighborhood, bought expensive cars and planned a trip to L.A. to buy marijuana for resale back in D.C. Gafari, who said he never participated in any of the robberies, was handed stacks of cash. He said he still had some of the stolen cash on him in April 2022 when he and one of the defendants, Erin Sheffey, were arrested after a traffic stop turned up bottles of codeine and pills, plus more than $10,000 in cash, in their vehicle. Those charges were dropped in November 2022, and the confiscated items were returned to Gafari.

Gafari was arrested again a month later for the murder of Sullivan and has been held without bond ever since. In July, Gafari pleaded guilty to one count of voluntary manslaughter in D.C. Superior Court, although the details of that plea have remained sealed and have not been reported until now.

According to a copy of the plea agreement entered into evidence by prosecutors, Gafari will face a sentencing guideline of 7-16 years in prison. Prosecutors may also, but are not obligated to, recommend a downward departure.

For hours on Friday and again on Monday, defense attorneys for the three men hammered Gafari on the details of his plea – pointing out even a top-of-the-guidelines sentence would see him serve less than half of the mandatory 30-year minimum a first-degree murder conviction would carry in D.C. They also questioned him about how Brock, McNair and Sheffey wound up being charged in the robberies while he wasn’t. An affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court notes that, at the time Gafari was arrested for murder, police were looking at him, Davon Sullivan, and a third man, Treyvon Green, as persons of interest in the October 2021 and March 2022 incidents.

Green, who was the only witness to Sullivan’s shooting, was shot and killed himself hours after Sullivan's death. No suspects in Green’s death have ever been publicly identified. Last month, DC Police confirmed to WUSA9 the case is still under active investigation and a $25,000 reward is still available for anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and conviction.

“Since the day you were arrested, you’ve been trying to get out of the consequences of the murder you committed, isn’t that correct?” attorney Stephen Brennwald, who represents Anthony McNair, asked Gafari.

Gafari agreed.

Defense attorney John Pierce, representing William Brock, asked the question more bluntly.

“With apologies to the jury, you said f*** everybody, I want to go home?” Pierce asked.

“Yeah, I said I’d give ‘em up,” Gafari said.

All three defendants have maintained throughout the case that they are unconnected to the robberies. During opening arguments, their attorneys told jurors the cell phone evidence showed nothing other than that they were in the neighborhood where they spend all their time every day. They argued the DNA evidence was unreliable, and that Gafari is a “complete stranger to the truth.”

If convicted, the men could face potentially lengthy prison sentences. Each is charged with at least one count of bank robbery, which carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, and one count of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison.

In addition to the robbery case, Sheffey has also been indicted in D.C. Superior Court with murder, assault and other charges in a separate case in connection with the death of 32-year-old Kiwyon Maddox during a shootout on 16th Street SE in August 2021. Brock also faces separate charges in connection to an unrelated shootout in November 2021 that resulted in an innocent bystander, Nathaniel Martin, being struck and killed. A D.C. Superior Court judge declined to find probable cause to uphold a murder charge against Brock in that incident, although he faces multiple other counts of assault with intent to kill while armed, robbery while armed and being a felon in possession of a firearm. At the time of his arrest in connection with the armored car robberies last year, McNair was already facing federal charges in Maryland of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with an unrelated case.