Parolee gets 25 years to life for weapons and drug charges stemming from 2022 shooting at 821 E. Main St.

A Riverhead man was sentenced yesterday to 25 years to life in prison for his involvement in a May 2022 shooting that injured one person, as well as drug charges, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney. 

Messiah Booker, also known as Matthew Booker, 38, was found guilty in January for several charges stemming from a shooting at the River Pointe Apartment complex on East Main Street, according to prosecutors. The shooting occurred while Booker was on parole release from prison on a prior felony conviction stemming from the fatal shooting of Dimitri Hampton, 21, during a home invasion in Flanders on Jan. 27, 2013. 

“With this sentence, we want the public to know that we are holding perpetrators of violence accountable,” Tierney said. “This happened in broad daylight in the parking lot of an apartment complex full of people. Violence will not be tolerated in Suffolk County.”

Prosecutors said Booker got into a verbal dispute with a teenager in the parking lot of the apartment complex, threatened to shoot the juvenile and flashed a loaded gun from a fanny pack he had retrieved from his vehicle, causing the teenager to flee. 

The teenager’s family arrived at the apartment complex around 3:50 p.m. and Booker started to argue with them, Tierney said. Booker went to his vehicle again, retrieved his gun and shot at one of the people in the crowd, the DA said. The bullet ricocheted off the ground and struck a nearby person in the forearm, causing Booker to flee the scene on foot, prosecutors said. 

Riverhead Town Police responded to the scene and found a 9 mm shell casing and impounded Booker’s vehicle, a Jeep Compass. Law enforcement found drugs including cocaine and morphine, over $1,000 in small denomination bills, four cellular phones, walkie-talkies, a tactical vest, 9 mm ammunition, a digital scale typically used to weigh narcotics and drug packaging material including glassine envelopes, Tierney said.

Booker was arrested on May 31, 2022 after an investigation by Riverhead Police detectives and members of the United States Marshals Service, according to police.

The jury found Booker guilty of: 

• two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, class C violent felonies; 
• two counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Fifth Degree with Intent to Sell, class D felonies; 
• two counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Seventh Degree, class A misdemeanors;  
• one count of Criminally Using Drug Paraphernalia in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor; and
• one count of Menacing in the Second Degree, a class B misdemeanor.

Prior to his conviction, Booker was convicted of five felonies. Booker was a participant in the home invasion that claimed the life of the Suffolk County Community College student and 2010 Riverhead High School graduate, who got into a scuffle with armed burglars who burst into the Flanders home of his cousin, where he was spending the night.

Booker had been charged with murder in Hampton’s death, but prosecutors were forced to enter into a plea deal with Booker after it was revealed at his trial that investigators had failed to turn over to defense attorneys, as required by law, more than 100 pages of notes, including evidence that others had confessed to the shooting. Booker pleaded guilty to attempted burglary in May 2017 and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released on parole in July 2021.