The 2 males went to Midtown homosexual bars and nightclubs in 2022, simply as New York Metropolis’s nightlife was booming once more after the pandemic. They turned victims — fatally drugged and robbed by males “ready within the wings to focus on them,” prosecutors stated Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court docket.
Within the opening statements of a homicide trial, prosecutors described a “lethal conspiracy” to befriend males leaving homosexual bars and golf equipment, slip them intoxicants and steal from them. The 2 males who have been killed, Julio Ramirez and John Umberger, have been victims in a string of not less than 5 robberies that rocked New York’s L.G.B.T.Q. group and unfold terror all through the town, as revelers apprehensive about being drugged, maybe fatally, by just some sips of a drink.
The defendants embody Jayqwan Hamilton, 37, described by police on the time of his arrest in 2023 because the chief of the group, and Robert DeMaio, 36. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. DeMaio are charged within the killings of Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Umberger.
A 3rd man, Jacob Barroso, 32, is accused of enjoying a job solely in Mr. Ramirez’s homicide.
The motive was cash, Emily Ching, one of many prosecutors, stated. “All they needed was to return up on a jackpot,” she stated.
David B. Krauss, a lawyer for Mr. Barroso, stated Ms. Ching’s statements have been only a “principle.”
“It’s not proof, it’s not something however accusations,” Mr. Krauss stated.
Prosecutors for the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace stated they used an array of proof, together with video surveillance and monetary and cellphone data, to piece collectively the group’s technique: Purchase targets, befriend them and ply them with medicine to incapacitate them. The victims would ultimately be deserted, typically unconscious, whereas their attackers launched into a spending spree with the stolen cash, prosecutors stated.
In April 2022, Mr. Ramirez, a 25-year-old social employee, was drugged after which deserted behind a taxi. He was declared useless roughly 90 minutes after leaving the Ritz Bar and Lounge in Hell’s Kitchen and entering into the cab with three males, two of whom prosecutors recognized as Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Barroso.
As Ms. Ching walked the jury by the final moments of Mr. Ramirez’s life, ending together with his dying at a hospital, a juror — an older man gripping a wood cane — closed his eyes and hung his head.
Within the gallery, family of Mr. Ramirez handed a tissue field down the row, as one lady tried to stifle her sobs.
A month after Mr. Ramirez’s dying, Mr. Umberger, a 33-year-old political marketing consultant from Washington, D.C., left a homosexual bar with two males, who authorities say have been Mr. Hamilton and Mr. DeMaio, simply three blocks from the Ritz. His physique was present in an Higher East Facet townhouse lower than per week later.
At first, the 2 deaths have been handled as remoted overdoses, however family grew suspicious once they discovered that cash had been taken from the victims’ accounts. At the least $3,200 had been funneled from Mr. Ramirez’s accounts through Zelle transactions, and Mr. Umberger’s mom stated on the time that $20,000 had been withdrawn from her son’s accounts after he had already been declared useless.
A health worker later decided that each males had been killed by a cocktail of medicine that included fentanyl.
After the victims’ households pushed for additional investigation, authorities stated they uncovered a legal operation by which the perpetrators used textual content messages and social media to hone their plans of assault and resolve the right way to use the stolen funds.
On Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr. DeMaio, Dean J. Vigliano, argued that the jurors had heard solely a fraction of the story. Echoing Mr. Krauss, he implored them to “hold an open thoughts.”
Two different males — Shane Hoskins and Andre Butts — pleaded responsible to theft expenses and are anticipated to obtain eight-year jail sentences in March.
The prosecution’s first witness on Wednesday described being drugged by two of the defendants.
The witness, whose title was redacted, stated he awoke alone in his lodge room after an evening out in 2022, which included a cease on the Q, a homosexual nightclub on the time in Hell’s Kitchen. He couldn’t bear in mind how he had gotten again to his room, he stated, and his telephones and bank card have been lacking.
He stated he observed a number of monetary transactions on his accounts that he couldn’t clarify, together with dozens of bottles of alcohol bought utilizing Uber Eats. He additionally had bruises on his physique, he informed jurors.
Shortly after the arrests of Mr. Butts, Mr. DeMaio and Mr. Barroso have been introduced in 2023, Mr. Umberger’s mom, Linda Clary, stated that she was relieved that her son’s assailants would face repercussions. On Wednesday, she described her late son as “my best cheerleader, my best challenger,” somebody who “all the time made the whole lot higher, brighter.”
As she left the courtroom, she stared into the eyes of the boys accused of killing her son, her face grim.
Ms. Clary stated outdoors that she had been looking out their faces for regret. “I hold on the lookout for that and I don’t see it,” she stated.
Hurubie Meko contributed reporting.
