AK-47 gunman who critically wounded beer deli owner pleads not guilty to federal charges
Citing public safety concerns, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia last month charged Jovaun Patterson with attempted robbery and using a firearm in a crime of violence for last year's shooting that critically wounded a West Philadelphia beer deli owner.
Jovaun Patterson, the West Philadelphia man already serving a state prison sentence for shooting and critically wounding a beer deli owner with an AK-47 rifle last year, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges lodged against him for the same crime.
Patterson, 29, was brought from the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township in central Pennsylvania to the federal courthouse in Center City for his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice.
While waiting to appear before the judge, he looked toward the gallery and smiled at his mother.
Patterson had shot and nearly killed former West Philadelphia beer deli owner Mike Poeng during an attempted robbery on May 5 outside the store at 54th and Spruce Streets. Under a Nov. 15 plea deal between the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and Patterson’s attorney, S. Philip Steinberg, Patterson had been sentenced to 3½ to 10 years in state prison on charges of aggravated assault, robbery, and possession of an instrument of crime.
The plea deal, before Common Pleas Court Judge Rayford Means, was considered lenient by many in law enforcement, and also was criticized because the DA’s Office failed to notify Poeng, then 50, of the hearing, in violation of the Pennsylvania Crime Victims Act.
On Feb. 28, U.S. Attorney William McSwain, citing public safety concerns, announced that a federal grand jury indicted Patterson on charges of attempted robbery under the federal Hobbs Act and with carrying and using a firearm in a crime of violence. McSwain contended that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s lenient policies, including giving “sweetheart deals to violent defendants,” emboldens criminals on the street to "think they can literally get away with murder.”
Patterson’s case was the first during Krasner’s tenure in which federal prosecutors filed charges after a defendant was already convicted and sentenced in the city’s courts.
Steinberg, meanwhile, in anticipation of the federal indictment, on Feb. 26 filed a request in Common Pleas Court asking Means to grant a motion by the DA’s Office to vacate the negotiated state prison sentence. The DA’s Office filed its Dec. 7 motion after criticism emerged of the deal. Means has yet to officially rule on the DA’s motion, though he has acknowledged that there is no legal basis for him to undo a deal that the DA’s Office itself negotiated. He has not ruled on Steinberg’s request.
“I certainly think it’s not appropriate” for Patterson “to serve two separate sentences for the exact same crime,” Steinberg said after Wednesday’s brief federal court hearing.
If convicted under the federal firearm statute, Patterson would face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, consecutive to any other sentence he is to serve.