BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — One of the four men charged in connection with the kidnapping, robbery and killing of a suspected drug dealer in Connecticut a decade ago was sentenced Friday to life in prison, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Harold Cook, 42, of Bloomfield was sentenced in federal court in Bridgeport for his role in the January 2009 shooting of Charles Teasley in Hartford.
Cook and his accomplices were involved in a scheme to rob people they believed to be drug dealers and Cook had arranged to meet Teasley, 35, to purchase cocaine, prosecutors said.
During the meeting, the defendants bound the victim’s hands, threatened him with a gun, assaulted him and forced him to call his girlfriend to tell her to bring them a safe he kept at her home.
They drove to the residence to get the safe, and on the return trip Cook and another defendant shot Teasley in the head and left his body in the back seat of his own car, authorities said.
They were not arrested until April 2017.
Cook, Gerund Mickens and Terrell Hunter were all found guilty in August of kidnapping and gun charges. The fourth defendant, Jesus Ashanti, pleaded guilty in July 2018.
Mickens was also sentenced to life in prison. Hunter and Ashanti await sentencing.
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