Involved in the “Grimey” gang, Fortin admits to the shooting

The hearing was held to plead guilty to the shooter, 27-year-old Esteban Benjamin Fortin. So at the judge’s insistence, Platania explained that the person who refused to cooperate was not Fortin, but the shooting victim, Alia Eles Brown, also 27, who Platania said was so belligerent while being treated at the hospital that he needed to be administered sedatives.

Fortin appears to have benefited from his victim’s defiance, as he pleaded guilty not to shooting Brown, but to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Unlike some executions, where sentences can last decades, Fortin’s maximum sentence when he returns to court early next year will be five years behind bars.

Fortin could face another challenge when another court that once offered him conditional probation considers whether this new conviction is a probation violation. Other issues facing Fortin are a search warrant affidavit that calls him a “proven gang member” and that his name is repeated in Virginia’s crime database in at least five jurisdictions.

“Fortin’s background was checked and it came back with ten felony convictions,” according to an affidavit written by Detective Arron Arreguin.

A felony conviction prevents Virginians from owning or possessing a gun until they receive court approval to restore their rights.

What happened in Belmont on the evening of August 22 started with a local woman named Christina Sprouse. After attacking Brown, her ex-boyfriend, in a crime that led to Brown being convicted of kidnapping last year, Sprouse was entertaining a new friend that night: Fortin.

Fortin, a rapper who goes by the name “Grimey,” was also a newcomer to Charlottesville. In a way, he seemed to put his violent past behind him, taking jobs at two local temp agencies and working on his music. His YouTube account shows several months of sporadic uploads averaging about one video per month, which suddenly accelerated in the months before his arrest, with 26 uploads in three months.

Fortin showed Sprouse his Facebook page at his Nassau Street residence before they went to the BP gas station on Monticello Road, the detective said. There, Sprouse received a phone call from her mother, who reported seeing something disturbing at Sprouse’s Mason Street apartment.

“Brown was there, throwing things around the room, pouring alcohol and being very belligerent,” the mother allegedly told her daughter.

So Sprouse and Fortin hurried to Mason Street, where the situation escalated.

“Once outside her residence, Sprouse says Brown looks at her, changes position and lunges at her ‘full force,'” according to the detective’s report.

That’s when a shot pierced the night—and Brown’s left forearm.

In court Tuesday, Platania said data from Fortin’s phone included an admission that he committed the shooting. However, Brown alternately complained to the officers that the dog bit him and “she” shot him.

Sitting in court next to his business-suited attorney, Thomas Wilson, Fortin, despite his gray and white prison jumpsuit, literally sparkled. His face was decorated with numerous tattoos with fine lines, a pair of tortoiseshell glasses and a jewel on his right cheek that sparkled under the fluorescent lights of the courtroom.

Other than answering factual questions from Judge Richard Moore and voicing his guilty plea, Fortin said little during the hearing.

Fortin’s most serious prior offense may be an incident in the summer of 2018, when two people shot at a 17-year-old’s home, the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily reported. Fortin was initially charged with attempted second-degree murder, shooting into an occupied building, armed burglary, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, destruction of property and possession of a weapon by a felon. He served three years of a total of 20 years in prison for nighttime burglary and the use of a firearm in a crime.

At the time of the Mason Street shooting, Fortin was on probation following a 2019 York County conviction.

“Did they pick it up?” asked the judge.

“Yes, sir,” replied Fortin.

Court records show that Fortin, who is currently stuck in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, could soon be returned to York County Circuit Court as that jurisdiction decides what to do with the 17 years that were suspended from his previous conviction.

Fortin will be sentenced in Charlottesville on Jan. 5.