{"id":20633,"date":"2025-10-29T01:07:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T01:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20633\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T01:07:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T01:07:24","slug":"ex-mdc-brooklyn-jail-guard-guilty-in-wild-car-chase-shooting-faces-10-years-minimum-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20633\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-MDC Brooklyn jail guard guilty in wild car-chase shooting, faces 10 years minimum"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former MDC Brooklyn guard committed a crime when he shot up a contraband smuggler\u2019s car<\/a> after a high-speed chase through Brooklyn, a federal jury decided Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Leon Wilson, 51, blasted a half-dozen rounds at a fleeing BMW after chasing it for a mile from the Sunset Park jail\u2019s staff parking lot in the wee hours of Sept. 4, 2023, firing a bullet into the back<\/a> of a man sitting in the rear seat.<\/p>\n

He then continued to follow the shot-up BMW to the Brooklyn Bridge, and returned to work without calling 911 or reporting the shooting to his superiors.<\/p>\n

Wilson, who took the stand in his own defense,<\/a> told the jury that he thought he had interrupted a jailbreak in process but couldn\u2019t reach his radio to call for help. He said he saw someone in the fleeing car point a gun at him and didn\u2019t report the shooting because he was \u201cin shock.\u201d He said he wasn\u2019t chasing the vehicle to the Brooklyn Bridge, but was simply frazzled and driving.<\/p>\n

It took the Brooklyn Federal Court jury about three hours to weigh the evidence and determine Wilson\u2019s story not credible. They found him guilty of depriving the shooting victim of his civil rights while acting under color of law, and use of a firearm in a crime of violence.<\/p>\n

Dressed in a gray suit and bright multicolored tie, Wilson rocked back and forth as the jury read the verdict. He stared down at the defense table and at one point buried his head in his hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unfair. These gangs, they come to the jail \u2026 to bring contraband. I thought it was an escape,\u201d the shell-shocked Wilson said quietly, while surrounded by family and friends afterward outside the courtroom. He insisted he didn\u2019t report the shooting because of anxiety and trauma from his military days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to hide nothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s defense lawyer, Mark DeMarco, portrayed Wilson as a hero and Army veteran who was doing his job, and any mistakes he made were because he chose to do something instead of sit by, quoting Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s famous 1910 line, \u201cIt is not the critic who counts \u2026 the credit actually belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeon Wilson wasn\u2019t a good officer. He was a great officer,\u201d DeMarco said. \u201cHe had to make a decision. He had to either stop the escape or at the very least stop and seize the car that had contraband. \u2026 He could have stopped, but that\u2019s not how Leon\u2019s built. He\u2019s a soldier. He\u2019s a great correction officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Silverberg scoffed at that description in his rebuttal to DeMarco\u2019s closing arguments.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a hero. He wants credit for shooting a guy in the back and trying to bury it? Come on,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s trying to make a self-defense claim appear out of whole cloth despite the evidence. \u2026 No one who\u2019s threatened with a gun behaves the way the defendant did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silverberg added, \u201cThere are tough cases. This isn\u2019t one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury agreed.<\/p>\n

Wilson was on perimeter duty the day of the early-morning car chase, a posting where he\u2019s allowed to carry a service weapon. Prosecutors and Wilson\u2019s defense attorneys differed on whether he used that gun or a different one.<\/p>\n

He briefly stepped away from his post around 4:30 a.m., getting into a Bureau of Prisons-issued van so he could buy a MetroCard and a cup of coffee at a nearby subway station, and when he returned, a BMW with tinted windows pulled into the staff lot, where it didn\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n

Wilson parked the van across the street and watched the BMW, then drove into the lot and pulled in front of it. The driver sped off and Wilson gave chase \u2014 even though his authority ended once he left the jail property, prosecutors argued.<\/p>\n

He opened fire after closing the distance near Hamilton Ave. and Hamilton Place, hitting passenger Erick Encarnacion in the back. Encarnacion testified no one in the car had a gun or pointed anything at Wilson, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Reid told the jury the evidence backs up his claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we know? It\u2019s on video. We have the video,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wilson told jurors he saw a rope<\/a> come down from the side of the jail, noticed the glow of cell phones from inside the car, and moved in to stop a possible escape. Reid and Silverberg countered that there\u2019s no way he could have seen what he claimed from across the street, through the parking lot gate and other cars, and through the BMW\u2019s tinted windows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no escape procedure at the MDC where you follow the car without telling anyone for a mile,\u201d Reid said.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s turn on the stand Monday got heated several times during Silverberg\u2019s cross-examination, including a moment when the prosecutor had Wilson go over every small detail of how he pulled his gun, to which Wilson muttered under his breath, \u201cYou\u2019ve never fired a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Silverberg quipped to the jury, \u201cHe\u2019s activating escape orders, but not telling anyone else on Planet Earth that he thinks someone is escaping?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n

He remains free on bond until the judge determines whether he should be remanded without bail, which is usually required in cases of violence, barring special circumstances. Sending him to MDC Brooklyn is \u201cnot a realistic option,\u201d Judge Pamela Chen said.<\/p>\n

Chen has not set a sentencing date.<\/p>\n

Rhonda Barnwell, the president of the MDC\u2019s correction officers union, said Wilson got a raw deal when the judge wouldn\u2019t allow testimony about the level of violence and the amount of contraband flowing into the jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we felt that he could use to show his state of mind, we weren\u2019t allowed to use,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Just a few months before the shooting, Barnwell penned a memo<\/a> describing the severe staffing issues at MDC Brooklyn, calling the Bureau of Prisons\u2019 handling of understaffing \u201cinhumane to both staff and inmates.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have the staff,\u201d Barnwell said, explaining that Wilson was covering more than one perimeter post. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason why he had the van.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t give him a fair chance,\u201d she added. \u201cThey didn\u2019t let him say why the institution was so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s lawyer, Jeffrey Greco, called the verdict \u201cdeeply troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened here represents more than one man\u2019s conviction: It\u2019s an indictment of a correctional system that too often leaves its officers vulnerable and unsupported,\u201d he said. \u201cMy client acted in a split-second situation involving an individual attempting to smuggle weapons into a secure facility \u2014 a circumstance that posed a serious threat to officers and inmates alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo now face prison for acting in the line of duty sends a chilling message to those sworn to protect our institutions: that doing your job can cost you your freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former MDC Brooklyn guard committed a crime when he shot up a contraband smuggler\u2019s car after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[13165,98,11198,100,99,2700,13166,3130,13164,4112,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-20633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-bmw","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-bridge","11":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","12":"tag-brooklyn-news","13":"tag-car","14":"tag-eric-silverberg","15":"tag-jail","16":"tag-leon-wilson","17":"tag-mdc-brooklyn","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}