A New York City judge has sentenced three men of color to decades in prison for lethally drugging and robbing two gay men they met in local gay bars during spring 2022. The men’s lawyers have all pledged to appeal their convictions.
Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced 37-year-old Jayqwan Hamilton and 36-year-old Robert DeMaio for the murder of 25-year-old social worker Julio Ramirez. Mennin also sentenced Hamilton, DeMaio, and 32-year-old Jacob Barroso for the murder of 33-year-old political consultant John Umberger.
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The attack left one man with injuries and bruising, but the couple fought back.
Hamilton and DeMaio will now serve 40 years to life in prison and Barroso will serve 25 years to life. Hamilton and Barroso maintained their innocence during their Wednesday sentencing hearing.
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The men stand convicted of working together to drug and rob five men between March 2021 to June 2022, three of which resulted in death. The trio reportedly drugged the victims into unconsciousness using a mixture of drugs — including the lethal opioid fentanyl — and then used their lifeless faces to unlock the facial recognition security on their phones. The attackers then allegedly stole thousands of dollars from their banking apps and used their payment apps to buy food, shoes, alcohol, and other things, NBC News reported.
Ramirez was found dead in the back of a taxi cab in May 2022 after encountering Mennin and Hamilton at the Ritz Bar and Lounge. Umberger was found dead in his townhouse, days after he met the men at a now-closed bar called The Q.
After murdering Umberger, Hamilton and DeMaio reportedly left the victim alone in his townhouse while the two murderers went on a shopping spree. A video they recorded in the townhouse showed them celebrating near his body on the night of his death.
The convicted men’s defense attorneys had claimed that it was difficult to know how exactly the victims may have been drugged since some of them also recreationally used other drugs, like cocaine.
In her victim impact statement before the court, Umberger’s mother, Linda Clary, said that losing her son is “truly the greatest pain and worst pain in the world” and that “this was preventable and this should not have happened,” adding, “I would like to pause for 13 seconds to acknowledge [Hamilton and DeMaio’s] video that was made while my son died, and [they] did nothing to help.”
City police stepped up their investigations into the killings after survivors of similar incidents accused police of mishandling and dismissing their cases. One survivor, 27-year-old Tyler Burt, said he believed someone had drugged his drink the night before he woke up and found $15,000 missing from his bank accounts. Burt accused police of refusing to look at bar surveillance footage and leaving his inquiries unanswered for weeks.
Another anonymous 51-year-old survivor told NBC News that city police officers told him to stop visiting the local precinct when he repeatedly showed up to follow up on any investigations in his case. Others told the news outlet that police accusingly questioned them about their own alcohol and drug use when they reported their own similar robberies.
Gay New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, whose district includes the Hell’s Kitchen area where the robberies occurred, criticized police at the time, saying, “Sadly, these lives were discounted because they were gay men who were at nightclubs. And for whatever reason, there seems to be a bias against taking these types of crimes as seriously as if it had happened to someone else.”
Three other men — Eddie Ashley, Shane Hoskins, and Andre Butts — have been arrested and convicted after pleading guilty in connection to similar robberies.
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