t I can do,  and  I would F you guys up and you don't know what I am capable of doing,  according to prosecutors.

He also committed robberies and other non-fatal shootings, and stabbed three inmates at the MDC Brooklyn jail in two separate fights in December 2024 and February 2025, prosecutors said.

 He acts impulsively, and if he doesn't like something, well, if you don't get shot then maybe you'll get sentenced,  Cogan said.

Prosecutors were asking for life in prison - a higher sentence than Harrell, the Bully leader, got - with Assistant U.S. Attorney Joy Lurinsky calling Gillespie the gang's  violent enforcer  who used his gun as a first resort.

She pointed out that a rumor the feds were looking for Hawley turned out to be false, but rather than ask around and find out for himself, Gillespie's first reaction was to preemptively silence Hawley with a bullet.

 He was dead the next day,  Lurinsky said, adding,  An unnecessary murder, even from the defendant's perspective. 

Gillespie's lawyer, Kannan Sundaram of the Federal Defenders, described him as devoted to his daughters, and said he should get consideration for the six years he's already served in the notoriously harsh MDC Brooklyn.

 Franklin Gillespie was one of the most violent members of an extraordinarily violent street gang and our Brooklyn community is rid of him thanks to today's sentence,  U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Wednesday.

Gillespie submitted an unexpected character reference - Karl Jordan Jr., the accused killer of Run-DMC icon Jam Master Jay, whose jury conviction was overturned in December.

Jordan was stabbed in a massive Feb. 22, 2025, melee inside MDC Brooklyn, in which prosecutors say Gillespie stabbed two people, and Jordan credits the  heroic  Gillespie with saving his life.

 He risked his own life to help me while I was fighting multiple people with knives,  Jordan wrote to the judge.  Franklin stepped in without hesitation, instinctively trying to help me. His actions were not motivated by violence or malice, instead he acted out of deep desire to stop further harm. If not for his intervention things would've been worse.