Trio Sentenced in Deadly NYC Gay Bar Drugging Scheme
A judge sentenced three men to jail for carrying out a drugging and robbery scheme that claimed the lives of two gay men.
A Manhattan judge sentenced three men to decades in prison for their role in a scheme that led to the deaths of two gay men.
Jayqwan Hamilton, 37, Jacob Barroso, 32, and Robert DeMaio, 36, were found guilty of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in connection with the scheme. They used illicit substances to drug and incapacitate their victims, deploying facial recognition technology on victims’ phones to access and drain their bank accounts.
The scheme, which ran from March 2021 to June 2022, resulted in the deaths of 25-year-old Julio Ramirez, a social worker, and John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from Washington, D.C.
Both men were murdered within a week of each other in the spring of 2022.
Ramirez was found dead in the back of a taxi, while Umberger was found dead in a townhouse where he was staying. Both had a mixture of drugs in their systems, including fentanyl, lidocaine, and cocaine, according to the city medical examiner’s office.
Three other men — Eddie Ashley, Shane Hoskins, and Andre Butts — were also arrested and convicted in the drugging and robbery scheme, but pleaded guilty to the charges against them, while the other three chose to go to trial.
Hamilton, Demaio, and Barroso were ultimately convicted of murdering Ramirez, while Hamilton and DeMaio were convicted of murdering Umberger.
During a May 21 hearing, Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison, while Barroso was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, reports NBC News.
“This was a cold and calculated pattern,” Mennin said. “I pity your lack of empathy. But pity will not translate into leniency in this case.”
At trial, prosecutors alleged that the trio worked together to drug and rob five men after meeting them outside popular New York City gay bars and nightclubs. As evidence, they presented a video of Hamilton and DeMaio partying in the townhouse alongside Umberger’s unconscious body.
Lawyers for Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio argued that it was impossible to know which drugs killed the two men, noting that some of the victims of the robbery scheme used illicit drugs recreationally.
Prior to sentencing, the men’s lawyers asked for more lenient sentences and noted they planned to appeal the convictions.
“In this case, no one was supposed to die. That’s the tragedy. No one intended to murder these young men,” Dean Vigliano, DeMaio’s attorney, told the court.
Both Hamilton and Barroso continue to maintain their innocence, despite the conviction. Addressing the court, Hamilton admitted to making mistakes, which he regrets, but insisted his actions weren’t deadly.
Following Ramirez’s death, additional victims stepped forward and shared stories of being drugged and robbed at gay bars on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But some victims claims that police did not believe them after they shared their stories, leading to criticism of the way the New York Police Department handled the cases.
Prosecutors maintain that the victims were targeted for financial gain, and not due to their sexual orientation, which is why the men faced no bias-motivated enhancements.
At the same time that Hamilton, DeMaio, and Barrosso were conducting their scheme, another crime ring was carrying out a nearly identical one involving non-LGBTQ club-goers in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which also led to several deaths and has resulted in at least one arrest.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has called upon third-party payment apps to implement more stringent security measures to protect their customers.
But last December, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have required mobile banking applications to require the use of a Personal Identification Number (PIN) when a user made any transaction exceeding a set monetary limit of their choosing.
The bill also would have required a PIN before transferring money to users in situations where fraud is suspected — such as signing in on an unrecognized device or making multiple transactions within the same hour. Many advocates argue that Hochul’s veto encourages criminals to commit similar robberies.
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