Date: November 15, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that Maurice Menafee, also known as "Mo," of New Haven, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea in Hartford to 86 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for a firearm possession offense. According to court documents and statements made in court, in the morning of February 9, 2022, members of the Drug Enforcement Administration New Haven Task Force and the New Haven Police Department Shooting Task Force observed a car involved in suspected drug transactions at the intersection of Baldwin Street and Davenport Avenue in New Haven, and then traveling recklessly at high rate of speed throughout the city. Investigators subsequently located the vehicle parked at a residence on Plymouth Street and identified the driver as Menafee. After Menafee was apprehended, a search of his person revealed $564 in cash and a search of the car revealed a Sig Sauer P238 .380 caliber pistol, 64 baggies of crack cocaine, and 116 wax folds of fentanyl. Menafee's criminal history includes state firearm and drug convictions. It is a violation of federal law for a person previously convicted of a felony offense to possess a firearm or ammunition that has moved in interstate or foreign commerce. Menafee has been detained since his federal arrest on March 2, 2022. On January 10, 2023, he pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. The DEA New Haven Task Force includes participants from the DEA, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI), U.S. Marshals Service, Connecticut State Police and the New Haven, Waterbury, East Haven, Branford, West Haven, Ansonia, Meriden, Naugatuck, and Shelton Police Departments. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine E. Boyles and Nathaniel J. Gentile. This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), the centerpiece of the Department of Justice's violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
