NEW YORK — Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social employee, died in a taxi of an overdose closing April after leaving a bar in Manhattan with a bunch of men. Relatives grew suspicious after they found out cash lacking from his checking account.
A month later, John Umberger used to be discovered useless in a townhouse after leaving a nightclub so incapacitated that he had to be helped via a number of partners, police say.
Umberger’s circle of relatives suspected foul play, doubting that the 33-year-old political guide visiting New York City from Washington, D.C., would have purposely taken a deadly dose of gear. Suspicions heightened when his checking account, too, seemed to were tired.
A grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday names 5 men in connection to the drugging deaths of Ramirez and Umberger as a part of a legal operation to scouse borrow cash. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office stated the crowd centered men at bars and golf equipment — befriending them and then plying them with potent and unhealthy medicine. When their sufferers become incapacitated, they have been robbed in their wallets and cell phones, that have been used to make purchases and digitally siphon cash from their financial institution accounts.
The scientific examiner’s workplace closing month dominated each deaths have been the results of “drug-facilitated thefts” and homicides. Lab tests showed both men had fentanyl, cocaine and lidocaine, among other substances, in their systems when they died.
“There were numerous victims in this pattern of crimes,” stated NY Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell all through a Tuesday news convention saying the arrest of 5 suspects sought after in reference to the operation that led to the men’s deaths.
“They were targeted for robberies, and many of the victims are from our LGBTQIA-plus community,” Sewell said.
The grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday charged Jayqwan Hamilton, 35; Robert Demaio, 34; Jacob Barroso, 29; Andre Butts, 27; and Shane Hoskins, 30, for robbery and conspiracy to commit the robberies. All were charged with identity theft and grand larceny.
Hamilton and Demaio were charged with two counts of murder, while Barroso was charged with one murder count.
A sixth defendant, Eddie Ashley, who had been previously arrested, was separately indicted in connection with a single robbery incident.
“Their motive, we allege, was simple: To make money,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg stated.
“They approached people, leaving bars and nightclubs late at night, engaged them in conversation and offered them illicit and dangerous substances,” Bragg stated. “The defendants use these substances as weapons to incapacitate their victims, giving them an opportunity to steal their phones and credit cards in the subsequent hours and days after each incident.”
The alleged crimes didn’t seem to particularly goal homosexual men, Bragg stated. However, the group the place the legal undertaking targeted assaults has a prime focus of LGBTQ+ citizens.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, stated he identified the heightened anxiousness being felt via one of the crucial town’s citizens.
“We want to send a message to our LGBT community that we understood the trauma that you experienced during this time,” he stated, including that government will “investigate any potentiality of a hate-crime component to this.”
Not all victims were gay men, officials said.
In March 2022, Nurbu Sherpa, a 29-year-old chef, was found dead on the sidewalk after leaving a bar where he had been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. The Manhattan district attorney said at least one suspect has been charged in Sherpa’s killing and that of Ardijan Berisha, 26, who had passed out on a sidewalk with a friend in July after drinking at a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Other men have since come forward with stories about being drugged by strangers and waking up to find money gone. Police urged others to report similar incidents.
Chief of Detectives James Essig stated investigators have seemed into 17 identical incidents between September 2021 and August 2022, when men have been befriended in bars or nightclubs and introduced narcotics or marijuana.
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