The two men went to gay bars and nightclubs in Midtown in 2022, just as New York City’s nightlife was booming again after the pandemic. They became victims — fatally drugged and robbed by men “waiting in the wings to prey on them,” prosecutors said Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court.
In opening statements in the murder trial, prosecutors described a “deadly conspiracy” to befriend, drug and steal from men leaving gay bars and clubs. The two men killed, Julio Ramirez and John Umberger, were the victims of a string of at least five robberies that shook New York’s LGBTQ community and spread terror throughout the city, as fans were drugged. It was feared, perhaps fatally, by only a few. Sip a drink
The defendants include 37-year-old Jaquan Hamilton, who police identified as the leader of the group at the time of his arrest in 2023, and 36-year-old Robert DeMaio. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. DeMaio are charged with the murders of Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Umburger
A third man, Jacob Barroso, 32, is accused of only playing a role in Mr Ramirez’s murder.
Emily Chung, one of the prosecutors, said the motive was money. “They just wanted to hit a jackpot,” he said.
Mr. Barroso’s lawyer, David B. Krause, said Ms. Chung’s statements were just a “theory.”
“It’s not evidence, it’s nothing but allegations,” Mr. Krause said.
Prosecutors said they used an array of evidence, including video surveillance and financial and cell phone records, to piece together the group’s strategy: find targets, befriend them and drug them to incapacitate them. run Prosecutors said the victims would eventually be left abandoned, often unconscious, while their attackers began spending the stolen money.
In April 2022, Mr. Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, was drugged and then left in the back of a taxi. He was pronounced dead about 90 minutes after leaving the Ritz Bar and Lounge in Hell’s Kitchen and getting into a taxi with three men, two of whom prosecutors identified as Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Barroso.
As Ms. Chung walked the jury through the last moments of Mr. Ramirez’s life, ending with his death in hospital, one juror – an elderly man holding a wooden cane – closed his eyes and hung his head. gave
In the gallery, Mr. Ramirez’s relatives were passing a box of tissues down the row, as a woman tried to stifle her sobs.
A month after Mr. Ramirez’s death, Mr. Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant in Washington, D.C., left a gay bar with two men, who the authorities said were Mr. Hamilton and Mr. DeMaio, who had just met him. were three blocks apart. Ritz found her body less than a week later in an Upper East Side townhouse.
Initially, the two deaths were treated as isolated overdoses, but the family became suspicious when they learned that money had been taken from the victims’ accounts. At least $3,200 was withdrawn from Mr. Ramirez’s accounts through Zell transactions, and Mr. Umberger’s mother said at the time that $20,000 was withdrawn from her son’s accounts after he had already been pronounced dead.
A medical examiner later determined that both men had been killed by a cocktail of drugs that included fentanyl.
After the victims’ families pressed for more investigations, authorities said they had uncovered a criminal operation in which the perpetrators used text messages and social media to carry out their attack plans. And decided how to use the stolen money.
On Wednesday, one of Mr. DeMaio’s lawyers, Dean Jay Vigliano, argued that jurors heard only part of the story. Echoing Mr. Krause, he urged them to “keep an open mind.”
Two others – Shane Hoskins and Andre Butts – pleaded guilty to robbery charges and are expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison in March.
The prosecution’s first witness on Wednesday, Alexander Worsham, said two of the defendants had been drugged.
Mr Worsham said he woke up alone in his hotel room in 2022 after a night out, which included a stop at gay nightclub Q, then in Hell’s Kitchen. Mr Worsham said he did not remember how he got back to his room, and that his phone and credit cards were missing.
He said he saw several financial transactions on his accounts that he couldn’t explain, including dozens of bottles of wine purchased using Uber Eats. Mr Worsham also had bruises on his body, he told jurors.
Shortly after the arrests of Mr. Butts, Mr. DeMaio and Mr. Barroso were announced in 2023, Mr. Umberger’s mother, Linda Cleary, said she was satisfied that her son’s attackers would face consequences. On Wednesday, she described her late son as “my biggest cheerleader, my biggest challenger,” who “always made everything better, brighter.”
As he left the courtroom, he looked into the eyes of the men who had killed his son, his face grim.
Ms Cleary said outside that she was searching the faces of the accused men for remorse. “I keep looking for it and I can’t find it,” she said.
Horobi Miku Cooperation reporting.
