A St. Paul man connected to a Maplewood shooting in 2022 was sentenced to 3.8 years in prison for illegally possessing a firearm as a felon, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andrew
Luger announced this week.

Court documents show on March 7, 2023, St. Paul police officers went looking for De’Voncea Lashoun Griffo, 25, who was a suspect in an investigation.

De’Voncea Lashoun Griffo (Courtesy of Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

During their surveillance of the apartment building where Griffo lived, police said they saw him leave wearing a cross-body bag across his chest. He drove away in a Chevrolet Equinox and parked in a thrift store lot. Officers activated their emergency lights and conducted a felony stop.

Officers said that before they approached the vehicle, Griffo took off his bag and put it behind the center console of the car.

After he was arrested, officers obtained a search warrant and recovered the bag, which they said contained a .45-caliber Glock pistol with an extended magazine containing 23 rounds of ammunition. The gun was modified with an auto sear, also called a switch, which converts a semiautomatic firearm into a fully automatic firearm.

Griffo, who has prior felony convictions, is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition.

On July 18, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a firearm as a felon in U.S. District Court.

Griffo was one of three men charged in a June 2022 drive-by shooting in Maplewood.

Davion Lazarick Gaines, 21, of Minneapolis, was sentenced in August to three years in prison for second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with nearly four dozen gunshots that were fired outside two Maplewood apartment buildings along Clarence Street North. Griffo was charged in connection with the shooting along with Elias-Kareem Hany Aly, 22, of St. Paul.

Griffo and Aly were also charged in connection with the Feb. 16 shooting death of a tobacco store worker on St. Paul’s West Side. Griffo was charged with aiding an offender for being present when Aly fired a single shot that killed the 48-year-old worker, Abdullah Arif of Stillwater.

It was unclear Saturday what the status of those charges against Griffo were.

Witnesses said that four men, two later identified as Aly and Griffo, entered the tobacco shop around 3:30 p.m. After a confrontation, Aly knocked down a door chime while leaving. Arif went outside with a baseball bat and Aly allegedly fired a single shot through the driver’s side window of an SUV, hitting Arif in the chest. He died at the scene.

A February hearing is scheduled for Aly in connection with Arif’s death and the Maplewood drive-by shooting.

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