Man acquitted in Wilkinsburg mass shooting to plead guilty to federal gun charge
A man acquitted in the Wilkinsburg mass shooting case earlier this year will plead guilty next week to a felony gun charge in federal court.
Cheron Shelton, 33, of Pittsburgh’s Homewood section, is expected to plead to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon via video conference before U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab on Tuesday.
Shelton, who was facing a potential death sentence if convicted in the March 9, 2016, shooting on Franklin Avenue, was found not guilty by a jury on all counts Feb. 14, including six counts of criminal homicide.
The federal gun charge was filed 11 days later.
According to the indictment, Shelton possessed a Colt M4 .22-caliber rifle the day after the Wilkinsburg shooting when his mother’s home was searched.
In addition to the rifle, which had been stolen, investigators also found ammunition that matched what was used in the Wilkinsburg shooting, police said.
Head stamps on the bullets matched casings found at the crime scene, they said.
Shelton is prohibited from possessing a gun because of a 2010 conviction for possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture or deliver.
Shelton is still facing additional charges of conspiracy and criminal use of a communication facility in Common Pleas Court for allegedly helping to smuggle paper soaked in K2, a synthetic cannabinoid, into the jail last year.
Shelton’s co-defendant in the Wilkinsburg case, Robert Thomas, had the charges against him dismissed by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski less than an hour before the case was set to begin.
The dismissal came after prosecutors said they would not call their key witness who tied Thomas to the case because of credibility issues.
Police previously said that Thomas fired a handgun from the alley behind the house, driving the people at the cookout toward the back door, and Shelton then opened fire with an assault-style rifle.
Five people and an unborn child were killed.
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2020 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of “Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
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