In 2015, members of the Boston public school system were shocked to learn that Shaun Harrison, a high school dean and youth minister who was fondly known as the “Rev,” had shot a student in the back of his head, after recruiting him into a gang to sell drugs.
On Tuesday, the 63-year-old educator pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges. He faces up to 218 months — more than 18 years — in prison, the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts said. His sentencing will be on Nov. 15. Harrison was already behind bars after being sentenced in 2018 to about 25 years in prison for shooting the student.
“He used his position of trust to find victims and groom them,” said Rachael S. Rollins, a federal prosecutor whose office oversaw the case. “It is truly disgusting.”
Harrison lived a double life, authorities said. In public, he portrayed himself as an anti-violence advocate and a mentor to at-risk teens, as a dean at Boston’s English High School. In reality, he was a member of the Latin Kings gang, using his position to recruit teens to sell drugs, prosecutors said.
In March 2015, Harrison began to suspect that a student, Luis Rodriguez, who was distributing drugs under his direction had stolen money from him, and that Rodriguez could soon alert police about Harrison’s crimes, prosecutors said. On March 3, the dean was captured on surveillance camera shooting Rodriguez at point-blank range.
Rodriguez miraculously survived, with the bullet entering just beneath the right ear, narrowly missing his carotid artery, the Associated Press reported. Although Rodriguez initially didn’t tell police who had shot him, he later became an informant for authorities. “I was in such denial. I knew who did it. Of course I knew,” he said while testifying in court.
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Harrison and his attorneys could not be immediately reached late Wednesday. He has previously denied the allegations against him in media interviews. In 2016, as he awaited trial for the shooting, he told 7 News Boston that he had never sold drugs nor turned students into gang members. “Me? I would not even know how to do that,” he said.
In 2020, Harrison pleaded not guilty to accusations that he had worked with fellow gang members from behind bars to identify police informants in his case, according to the AP. But the Latin Kings supported him during his incarceration, praising Harrison’s loyalty and refusal to implicate others, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, a federal court last week ordered Harrison to pay $10 million to Rodriguez, as compensation for pain and emotional distress, medical bills and punitive damages.
Harrison was the 60th defendant to plead guilty in a federal racketeering conspiracy, drug conspiracy and firearms case against dozens of members and associates of the Latin Kings, a gang with thousands of members across the country. Two defendants remain wanted on federal arrest warrants, prosecutors said.
