Fiendish Hell’s Kitchen robbery crew used fentanyl as a weapon, resulting in 2 deaths: prosecutors
Manhattan prosecutors detailed the ghoulish crimes allegedly committed by a fentanyl-wielding robbery crew authorities say fatally drugged two men several years ago — and skewered the defense’s contention that the whole thing was just a big coincidence.
In her closing argument Friday, Assistant District Attorney Meghan Hast walked the jury through an avalanche of evidence authorities say proves defendants Jayqwan Hamilton, Robert DeMaio and Jacob Barroso drugged and robbed five different men in 2022.
Two of their alleged victims died during the ordeals, which often started with the alleged predators approaching inebriated young men leaving gay nightclubs in Hell’s Kitchen.
On Thursday, defense attorneys conceded their clients may indeed be criminals — but claimed they aren’t killers, adding that the prosecution hasn’t proved the men were the ones who gave the men the drugs.
But Hast batted that down Friday, saying fentanyl is the “perfect weapon to commit a robbery.”
“Did these men just happen upon people who took fentanyl on five different occasions?” she asked the jury.
“The idea that all this was accidental and that they simply profited from it — making them guilty of petit larceny — is the definition of an outlandish theory.”
During the trial, prosecutors said the suspects — allegedly part of a larger robbery gang — killed 33-year-old political consultant John Umberger and 25-year-old Brooklyn social worker Julio Ramirez by giving them fentanyl-laced drugs meant to knock them out.
But both victims died of “acute intoxication” from a mix of fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol and other drugs, the city medical examiner said last March.
All three are now facing murder charges for allegedly killing Ramirez — while Hamilton, 37, and DeMaio, 36, have additionally been charged in Umberger’s death.
The alleged druggings started March 18, 2022, when the men robbed and burglarized a man named Alex at Hyatt Union Square, the prosecutor said.
Hast showed the jury surveillance photos of Hamilton and another conspirator, Andre Butts, pushing their comatose victim on a hotel luggage trolley before robbing him in his hotel room as DeMaio waited in the getaway car.
“They wheeled him into his room, peeled his eyes open in order to unlock his phone, then left him for dead while calmly walking out of the hotel before escaping in a getaway car,” Hast said.
“Hamilton and Butts purposely gave him fentanyl to incapacitate and rob him,” she added. “This was no petty theft — this was a violent robbery and burglary.”
They allegedly robbed another man, named Max, the following month outside The Q nightclub in Midtown and later in his Brooklyn apartment, the prosecutor said.
“The cocaine was laced with a fast-acting powerful opioid, which had the desired effect,” she said, adding that they jacked the victim’s phone, bag and wallet.
“Maxwell doesn’t remember anything once he got back to the apartment with the men he met at the Q.”
A few weeks later, on April 21, Hamilton and Barroso, 32, approached Julio Ramirez outside The Ritz Bar in Manhattan, talked him up and loaded him in a cab.
By that point, Ramirez had fentanyl, heroin and the powerful synthetic opioid P-fluorofentanyl in his system — even though Hast said he’d only been drinking before the defendants handed him the lethal chemical cocktail.
“Julio was given cocaine laced with fentanyl, causing him to go into respiratory failure in under 15 minutes,” she told the court, noting that otherwise Ramirez was a “healthy 25-year-old man.”
The defendants allegedly took his phone, drained his bank accounts and took off when Ramirez passed out. Then they went on a wild shopping spree at Prada, Capsule and Sneaker Palace with their victim’s money.
“Even if you think [Ramirez] made a bad decision staying up until 3 a.m. drinking on a work night, he did not deserve to be drugged with fentanyl, stripped of his belongings and left for dead in the back of a New York taxi cab.”
They allegedly robbed another man named Gerardo just three weeks later, incapacitating him with some laced cocaine he snorted outside The Ritz before taking his phone and transferring his money to Hamilton’s account.
Two weeks later, on May 28, Hamilton and DeMaio approached Umberger outside The Q NYC, then went back to his townhouse with him at about 6 a.m.
Minutes later, Umberger was passed out on his bed — and Hamilton and DeMaio stayed for another half-hour as they ripped him off, she added.
“[They] hit the jackpot, and they were not going to screw it up,” Hast told the court. “They had hooked a slightly older, very successful gay man. John clearly had money, and they needed time to transfer those funds.”
Besides the murder charges, the trio has been hit with an assortment of robbery, burglary, conspiracy and larceny charges for their alleged crimes.
The jury started their deliberations after Hast wound up her lengthy summation.
It’s unclear when they’ll have a verdict.
