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NE Phila. Man Sentenced For Providing Gun Used In Shooting

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Northeast Philadelphia drug addict who bought four guns for his 16-year-old drug dealer was sentenced today to years in prison after the drug dealer used one of the "straw-purchased" guns to shoot someone.

Luke Dercole, 33, admits he was addicted to heroin -- his mother says it's "like the devil has him."

He says that when the teenage drug dealer wanted Dercole to buy him guns, he did it, purchasing four guns in a week (see related story).

Prosecutor Andrew Wellbrock say it led inevitably to violence (see related story) -- but not just another drug shooting.

"The victim of the shooting was at a party, came outside to urinate on the side of the building.  The shooter, the juvenile, took offense to that," Wellbrock says, because that alley happened to be the dealer's turf. "When the victim left the party an hour or so later, the juvenile fired nine times at him, striking him twice."

The 20-year-old shooting victim survived. When Dercole learned of the shooting with the gun he had purchased, he tried to commit suicide, jumping from the third-floor roof of his house.

Today, Dercole was sentenced to 2-14 years in prison for providing the gun the shooter used.

 

 

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