A Manhattan jury on Monday convicted three men of murder in the drugging and robbing of patrons of gay bars and clubs, two of whom were killed as their bank accounts were being drained.
One of those killed, Julio Ramirez, was left in the back of a taxi. The other, John Umberger, died in a townhouse where his attackers partied next to his lifeless body.
The three men, Jayqwan Hamilton, 37, Jacob Barroso, 32, and Robert DeMaio, 36, were also convicted of robbery and conspiracy.
Around 2:30 Monday afternoon, the jury forewoman stood up from her seat in the jury box and announced a verdict of “guilty” to each and every count that the defendants faced. As she spoke, family members of the men gasped.
As the three left the courtroom, their hands cuffed behind their backs, friends and relatives in the gallery shouted, “Love you.” Mr. DeMaio looked into the crowd as he was led away, tears streaming down his reddened face.
All three men were convicted of the murder of Mr. Ramirez, as well as conspiracy and various counts of robbery. Mr. DeMaio and Mr. Hamilton were both convicted of burglary and of the murder of Mr. Umberger.
Each man faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Their scheme was practiced and purposeful, Manhattan prosecutors said. They would lurk outside Midtown bars near closing time, knowing they would encounter young men who were pliable after a night of drinking. After chatting up the victims, prosecutors said, the men would give them drugs to subdue them and then steal their phones and credit cards.
“If they happen to die from fentanyl, it’s an added bonus, giving you more time to shop,” Meghan Hast, an assistant district attorney, told the State Supreme Court jury during closing arguments last week.
The men, Ms. Hast said, showed a “complete disregard for human life” in executing their “deadly hustle.” As she spoke, photos of Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Umberger appeared on a screen. Mr. Ramirez’s mother, seated in the gallery, began to cry.
The attacks, in 2022, instilled fear among New Yorkers who had just begun to enjoy the city’s nightlife after the lockdown prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than a dozen men interviewed by The New York Times described being drugged at gay bars and then robbed and left unconscious. The jury that convicted Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Barroso and Mr. DeMaio heard from several men who survived similar encounters.
One witness described waking up bruised and alone in a hotel room with his credit card and phones missing. Prosecutors later showed him images of two men wheeling his limp body into the hotel’s lobby on a luggage cart earlier that morning. Another witness said he could not remember inhaling a substance that another man held to his nose as depicted in a video shown to the jury.
Prosecutors showed the jury cellphone tower data, text exchanges, security-video footage and other evidence used by investigators to piece together the three men’s movements as they robbed their victims and then bought liquor, sneakers and other items.
The jury also heard from medical examiners who determined that Mr. Umberger, 33, and Mr. Ramirez, 25, were both killed by a fentanyl-laced drug cocktail. Text messages showed that Mr. DeMaio was responsible for obtaining the fentanyl. Emily Ching, a prosecutor, called it the “perfect drug to incapacitate their victims quickly.”
In April 2022, Mr. Ramirez, a social worker, was sipping a drink at the Ritz Bar & Lounge on West 46th Street, with a friend, Carlos Camacho. It was the last stop of a night they had spent bar hopping and taking in a drag show.
Mr. Camacho testified that they had paced their drinking over the course of the night and that the naturally bubbly Mr. Ramirez had become even more outgoing as the evening continued.
But at some point, Mr. Camacho said, they had gotten separated, and he had gone home, where he expected Mr. Ramirez to eventually arrive as planned.
It turned out that Mr. Ramirez had left the bar and gotten into a taxi with three men, including Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Barroso. The men left Mr. Ramirez in the back of the cab, and the driver wound up flagging down a police officer out of concern about his condition.
A month later, Mr. Umberger, a political consultant visiting the city from Washington D.C., was last seen leaving a bar with two men identified by prosecutors as Mr. Hamilton and Mr. DeMaio.
Jurors saw images of Mr. DeMaio grinning while sitting on a bed next to Mr. Umberger, who was unconscious and splayed out on his back with his lower body slumping toward the floor. In one video shown to the jury, the camera pans to a spacious balcony, where Mr. Hamilton is seen lounging against the railing with a drink in his hand.
Mr. Umberger’s body was found in the same position less than a week later in an Upper East Side townhouse. Members of his family who were in the courtroom gasped and sobbed when a picture of his body was shown on a large black screen next to the jury box.
Mr. Umberger’s mother, Linda Clary, who testified about her son’s “life of the party” personality, covered her mouth with her hand and looked down at the floor as the picture was shown.
The police initially treated the two deaths as isolated overdoses, but relatives of Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Umberger pushed for further investigation after discovering that large sums of money had been withdrawn from the men’s accounts around the time that they died.
Two other men involved in the scheme pleaded guilty to robbery charges previously and are expected to be sentenced next month to eight years in prison apiece.
The post 3 Convicted of Murder for Luring Men From Gay Bars to Their Deaths appeared first on New York Times.
