U.S. Attorney's Office
Social media postings by arrested alleged Exit 8 members, entered into evidence. The 8 ball is a reference to the gang.
New Haven has seen fewer shots fired these days — in part because of the arrest of a street gang “honcho” who has pleaded guilty to firing shots meant to kill.
That honcho is Jaedyn Rivera, aka “Jae Honcho,” of the Exit 8 gang accused of years worth of drug and weapons trafficking and retaliatory murders. The gang is named after the area around the I‑91 exit where it operates in and around Eastern Street and Quinnipiac Avenue housing complexes. Rivera pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday before U.S. District Court Judge Victor Bolden (a former New Haven corporation counsel) to one count of conspiracy to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity. He admitted to participating in four attempted retaliatory murders of rival gang members. (The victims were injured but not killed in those four shootings.)
Rivera, 23, also admitted to participating in the gang’s trafficking of firearms and heroin, fentanyl, crack, marijuana, oxycodone, and Percocet.
He faces up to 20 years in prison at his as-yet-unscheduled sentencing.
Rivera is one of nine Exit 8 members authorities have arrested as part of an ongoing investigation conducted by the New Haven police, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and federal and state prosecutors’ offices. The suspects ranged in age from 19 to 25 at the time of their arrests.
Authorities believe Exit 8 members have killed at least three people and tried to kill 16 others since 2018. They “celebrated their narcotics distribution and acts of violence through text messaging and the use of social media applications and websites including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube,” the U.S. Attorney’s office stated in a release.
Rivera is the second of the nine defendants to enter a guilty plea. Kiveon “Tiny” Hyman pleaded guilty to the same racketeering charge on Oct. 12.
The probe is ongoing.
In the meantime, the arrests are “partly responsible” for a decline of shootings and shots fired in New Haven, Police Chief Karl Jacobson said.
“This group has been violent for several years. The arrests are going to help us slow the violence down and hopefully solve shooters and murders,” Jacobson told the Independent Thursday.
Exit 8 members have been engaged in an “ongoing war” with rivals in the Hill, Fair Haven and Dwight-Kensington neighborhoods, according to investigators.
Rivera isn’t the only Exit 8 member using a “honcho” nickname. “Younger members of Exit 8 are identifying themselves with the word ‘Honcho,’ which is derived from the street name of an Exit 8 member who was murdered on Quinnipiac Avenue in February 2020,” the U.S. attorney release stated.
One of the murders included in this investigation claimed the life not of a rival gang member — but a 22-year-old woman named Ciera Jones. Exit 8 members pulled up to her home on Truman Street in a stolen Honda Pilot on the afternoon of July 5, 2021. She was hanging out with friends in a side yard. The shooters fired at least 15 bullets at her. According to a federal court filing against two of the nine Exit 8 defendants, they shot her “because she was making ‘dis tracks’ disrespecting Exit 8.”
CORNY.
Loser energy. Hopefully they realize how LAME they are.
LOSERS.