Press "Enter" to skip to content

Armed home invasions bring man 12-year federal sentence

Forty-three-year-old Markel Corevis Morton, also known as “Kel” or “Mafia,” recruited three associates to participate in a pair of year-ago armed home invasions attempting to score about $50,000 of a local drug dealer’s money. After Morton’s three designated robbers forced their way inside to search for cash at a Rio Road-area apartment, they held a woman there at gunpoint.

When they realized no cash was present, they stole her phone and then headed downtown to Prospect Avenue where Morton physically joined the effort to lead another invasion, this time into the dealer’s mother’s home. There, one participant pointed a gun at a person standing outside, and others absconded with a safe containing about $50,000.

Markel Corevis Morton signed his name to the above array of facts presented by prosecutors in the federal robbery and firearms case that sent him away Monday for 12 years.

Fellow participants in the August, 2021, crimes are Quincy Lamont Brock, 27, Adrian Chevarr Anderson, 40, and Corey Raymont Kinney, 48, all of whom have pleaded guilty to one or two charges in the case.

This was neither Morton’s first robbery conviction, nor his first 12-year sentence. Charlottesville Circuit Court records show that Morton received 30 years with 18 of them suspended for felony robbery in 2009. One piece of evidence in this new federal case appears to have stemmed from Morton’s prior dealings with the criminal justice system.

Ankle monitors have become a routine form of ensuring accountability among people on probation. According to the same set of facts to which Morton attested, while he was surveilling the Rio Road-area apartment and while he was leading the Prospect Avenue robbery his court-ordered electronic ankle bracelet was logging locational data via the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

Additional government evidence included surveillance video that captured images of some of Morton’s associates in action. And a trove of seized text messages showed Morton, Anderson, and Brock plotting the heist, according to the government.

A federal indictment had originally included additional charges for all four men including conspiracy, in part because they allegedly targeted what was believed to be a dealer’s “stash house,” a residence in the Treesdale Apartments off Rio Road. That is where a woman was held at gunpoint and robbed of her phone when no cash was found. However, no conspiracy charges appear in any of the four men’s plea deals.

On Monday morning at the U.S. Courthouse at 255 W. Main Street, alleged ringleader Morton wasn’t the only participant learning his jail sentence. Like Morton, Brock had also pleaded guilty to both armed robbery and brandishing a firearm, and he received a sentence of 10 years. Anderson pleaded guilty only to armed robbery and got two years. Kenney has pleaded guilty only to a brandishing charge and will be sentenced in January.

The Albemarle County Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked jointly in this investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Heather L. Carlton and Ronald M. Huber prosecuted. Judge Norman K. Moon accepted each man’s plea agreement.

Source: www.dailyprogress.com

Be First to Comment

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *