Faisil McCants will spend 37.5 years in federal prison after unleashing 15 shots from a converted machine gun during an August 2025 robbery in East Harlem that killed a 69-year-old bystander, a grandmother out in the middle of the day. The sentence was handed down Tuesday in Manhattan federal court after McCants’s guilty plea, capping months of investigation and court hearings. Neighbors say the brazen midday gunfire, which left a walker abandoned on the sidewalk, shook a community that had been hoping gun violence was finally slowing down.
“McCants, a repeat violent offender, fired 15 rounds in seconds on an East Harlem street and killed an innocent 69-year-old woman,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “He will now be where he should be: serving a 37.5-year prison sentence.” https://x.com/i/status/2051780303757115674
— U.S. Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) May 5, 2026
U.S. Attorney frames the case as a daytime outrage
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff imposed the 37.5-year term, to be followed by five years of supervised release. Prosecutors repeated U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton’s condemnation of the shooting and credited Homeland Security Investigations and the NYPD with piecing together the case.
How the shooting unfolded
Court filings and local coverage describe the Aug. 27, 2025, incident starting near East 109th Street and Madison Avenue, where McCants and two co-conspirators robbed a suspected drug dealer. As they ran north, McCants fired 15 rounds, spraying the block as they fled. Robin Wright, 69, who was standing with a walker at East 110th Street and Madison Avenue, was hit and later died from her injuries. WABC reported on the crime scene and the surveillance video that investigators reviewed.
Charges, plea and sentence
McCants pleaded guilty in November to use, carrying, and possession of a machine gun, an offense that the U.S. Attorney’s Office previously said carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years. This week, the court went beyond that floor and imposed a 37.5-year term.
Neighbors weigh the cost of daylight gun violence
Residents and local outlets described a mix of shock and weary grief after the killing, with neighbors leaving flowers at the corner and community members calling for tougher enforcement on illegal conversion devices that turn handguns into machine guns. Gothamist and the community hub covering how the East Harlem community mourns have followed the case from arrest to plea. Prosecutors said letters from Wright’s family, describing who she was to them and to the neighborhood, were part of what the judge considered at sentencing.
