Noah Green, of Shirley, pleads guilty in 2022 drive-by shooting outside former Rep. Lee Zeldin's house

A Shirley man charged with possessing the handgun fired in a drive-by shooting in October 2022 outside the home of then-Rep. Lee Zeldin pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon and conspiracy.

Noah Green, 20, entered his plea in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead almost two years after prosecutors say he shot at three men, hitting two in the chest, outside Zeldin’s Shirley home. The men survived. Authorities have described Green as a member of the No Fake Love gang and said the people he shot were rival gang members.

The former congressman was not a target, but his daughters were at home during the shooting, prosecutors said.

In a statement, Zeldin said the shootings were "traumatic for my family and couldn’t have hit any closer to home. I am thankful for Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, and the many law enforcement officials who swiftly acted to keep my daughters safe, transport the victims, and take the necessary legal action to hold Mr. Green accountable."

Green was one of 18 defendants indicted in December 2022 following a long-term investigation into violence committed by the No Fake Love gang by Long Island law enforcement agencies and Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office. Green will return to court for sentencing Oct. 15. An agreement with prosecutors calls for him to be sentenced to 12 years in prison, followed by 5 years of supervised release. He had faced a potential term of 25 years if convicted on all counts.

"Are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty?" Judge Anthony Senft on Thursday asked Green, handcuffed and wearing a cream sweatsuit.

"Yes," Green answered. He was silent during most of the roughly 30-minute hearing, aside from answering "yes" or "no" to questions from Senft and Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Martha Duffy.

A lawyer for Green, Chad LaVeglia, patted him on the back before court officers removed him from the courtroom. In the hallway outside, a woman who left the courtroom with LaVeglia told a Newsday photographer that Green was innocent. Asked to explain the guilty plea, she responded with an obscenity before getting into an elevator with LaVeglia.

In a phone interview, Michael Alber, also a lawyer for Green, said his client was "seeking to put this matter behind him ... He never wanted to be part of this at all." Alber said his client "does come from a good family." He declined to comment on prosecutors’ allegations of Green’s gang ties.

Prosecutors said in a news release that Green committed the October 2022 shootings while riding in a stolen Honda sport utility vehicle. He was in that vehicle when members of law enforcement approached him about three weeks later, getting caught after a foot chase. When law enforcement officials searched the vehicle, they found shell casings still lodged between the windshield and the hood of the vehicle, prosecutors said. They also found, in his pants pocket, a loaded Taurus 9-mm pistol with a high-capacity magazine. Tests showed it was the same gun used in the shootings, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said Green had boasted on social media about his gang affiliation and about committing the shooting. He posted photographs and videos of himself and other gang members with weapons and stolen vehicles, prosecutors said.

Aside from the Shirley shootings to which Green admitted, the 148-count indictment announced in 2022 by Tierney’s office included charges related to the slaying of a man outside a Farmingville nightclub, violent carjackings in Wading River and Wantagh and the theft of six French bulldog puppies: in total 31 separate alleged crimes, starting from October 2021.

"This was part and parcel of a larger gang conspiracy," Tierney told reporters outside the courtroom Thursday. "It’s significant that we’re able to hold these individuals responsible."

No Fake Love was a turf-based gang that considered Mastic and Shirley its territory, although its members committed crimes throughout Long Island, Tierney said in 2022.

Its members included members of Crips and Bloods, larger national gangs that are traditional rivals.

Tierney said that Green’s admission Thursday was "one in a long line of pleas we’ve had" from gang members named in the indictment.

The gang’s alleged leaders, Keandre Hudson, charged with conspiracy, and Janell Johnson, charged with criminal possession of a weapon and other offenses, have pleaded not guilty but not yet gone to trial, according to court records.