A man who served prison time for interfering with the police investigation of the fatal stabbing of an Enfield High School student during a 2018 fight is back in jail, held on $2 million bond, based on evidence that he was involved in a shootout in New Britain in January.
SHOOTOUT
DEFENDANTS: Michael J. Cerrato, 24, of Manchester and Ravon M. Dow, 29, of Portland.
MAJOR CHARGES: Cerrato is charged with attempted first-degree assault and Dow with conspiracy to commit first-degree assault.
STATUS: Both held in lieu of high bond.
Michael J. Cerrato, 24, who now lists his address as an apartment at 19 Henry St. in Manchester, at first denied involvement in the Jan. 20 shootout but later admitted it, according to an affidavit by two New Britain police detectives.
Cerrato told a detective he “discharged several rounds of ammunition toward someone who was shooting at him on High Street” in New Britain, the affidavit says.
Although Cerrato refused to give police information on others involved in the shootout or their vehicle, he said the New Britain shooting was in retaliation for a shooting in Portland, the detectives reported.
Police believe the Portland shooting, of the home of Ravon M. Dow, now 29, occurred earlier on the evening of the New Britain shootout. A confidential source told Portland police that the shooting there was in retaliation for a shooting Dow was believed to have been involved in still earlier that evening in Meriden, the affidavit says.
Dow is charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree assault and criminal possession of a firearm in the New Britain shooting and is being held on $350,000 bond, online court records show.
Cerrato is charged with attempted first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, and three weapons offenses in the shootout as well as four gun crimes based on a pistol police say he had when he was arrested on the shootout-related charges.
Cerrato is also facing a probation violation charge from his convictions of second-degree hindering prosecution and attempted evidence tampering in the fatal stabbing of Enfield High School student Justin Brady in front of his family’s home on Hoover Lane in Enfield on Sept. 10, 2018. Cerrato then lived with his adoptive father, Enfield Assistant Town Attorney Mark Cerrato.
Michael Cerrato got a three-year prison sentence for his attempts to protect his friend, Shyhiem “Trey” Adams of Hartford, who stabbed Brady. A Hartford Superior Court jury in 2021 acquitted Adams of first-degree manslaughter and evidence tampering after a trial in which he maintained that he had acted in self-defense.
The police affidavit in the January shootout in New Britain says the state Department of Correction has “affiliated” Cerrato with the Bloods gang and that his group in the shootout was believed to be Bloods-affiliated.
Police found 29 spent shell casings of two calibers at the scene of the shootout, which was reported to police at 10:50 p.m. Jan. 20, according to the affidavit, by Detectives Karl Mardasiewicz and Franshesca Bjorklund.
Cerrato went to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford that evening for treatment of a bullet wound to his foot. He initially gave a false name at the hospital and said he had been shot while walking in East Hartford, the detectives reported.
Cerrato said he had flagged down a passing motorist who drove him to the hospital, but hospital surveillance video showed him being dropped off by a white BMW, like the one involved in the shootout, according to the detectives.
Police later found such a vehicle outside Dow’s Portland home with what appeared to be “two bullet strikes in the rear trunk area,” the detectives reported.
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