Chief Assistant Prosecutor Rick McKelvey has served with the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office since 2011 and he is no stranger to working with and supporting the victims of violent crimes.
On Wednesday afternoon, During the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office Crime Victims’ Rights Week Commemoration, Chief Assistant Prosecutor McKelvey and the ACPO staff remembered and honored murder victim DeVonte Molley and his surviving family.
A graduate of Rutgers University, Camden Law School, Chief Assistant Prosecutor McKelvey said he was the assigned prosecutor for the murder of DeVonte Molley since the night the homicide occurred, on December 21, 2015.
DeVonte Molley, 23, of Mays Landing, was shot and killed in Atlantic City on December 21, 2015. In response to a 9-1-1 call, Atlantic City Police and emergency medical personnel responded on Monday, December 21, 2015, at 10:45 p.m. to the Baymont Inn & Suites Atlantic City Madison Hotel on the 100 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard, for a report of a man found injured.
Upon arrival, police found Devonte Molley, 23, of Grant Avenue, Mays Landing, bleeding from an injury to his abdomen. Emergency medical responders transported Molley to the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center—City Campus Trauma Unit, where he was later pronounced deceased.
“I worked with the Major Crimes Unit and Lt. Finan and Sgt. Carew to bring charges against the three people responsible," Chief Assistant Prosecutor McKelvey said.
"DeVonte’s mother, Khira, and his aunts were present at literally every court hearing we had on the case for about three-and-a-half years, always accompanied by our terrific Victim Witness Advocate Maria Sosa.”
He said DeVonte’s family had to endure a lengthy wait as the case made its way to trial in 2019.
The family was in court for a three-week trial and watched surveillance video of DeVonte’s painful last moments, among other things that no parent should ever have to see or hear.
DeVonte’s family waited in court as the jury deliberated and ultimately returned guilty verdicts in January 2019.
“Through it all, the family was patient, generous, warm and always real. Our office moved on to investigate and prosecute other crimes, as we must, but I know the loss that DeVonte’s mother, Khira and so many people like her suffer never fades.
It was wonderful to see her on Wednesday and to catch up on our lives and families and to present her with a token of our appreciation for the trust she placed in us,” said Chief Assistant Prosecutor Rick McKelvey, who has served as the ACPO Major Crimes Unit chief of litigation since 2019.
Chief Assistant Prosecutor McKelvey also works as an adjunct professor of Criminal Justice at Stockton University, serves as a board member of the Atlantic County Coalition for a Safe Community and is the secretary Atlantic County Bar Association.