Chicago gang member gets 16 years in shooting of ATF agent

CHICAGO – A member of a violent Chicago street gang convicted of shooting and wounding a plainclothes federal agent he mistook for a rival gang member was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in federal prison.

A jury earlier this year found Ernesto Godinez, a purported “chief” of the Almighty Latin Saints, guilty of assaulting an agent with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Prosecutors had sought a 30-year sentence in the 2018 shooting of U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agent Kevin Crump.

During the trial, prosecutors told jurors that Godinez was acting as a lookout for his gang on the city’s South Side when he opened fire on a group of men he thought was acting suspiciously. The group turned out to be Crump and other agents who were members of a task force placing court-approved tracking devices on vehicles belonging to suspected gang members.

Prosecutors said a bullet entered Crump’s neck and exited between his eyes and that Crump has undergone several reconstructive surgeries.