A Staten Island Bloods gang boss on trial for racketeering and murder laid out his crimes in a music video called “Revenge is Glorious” and in dozens of pages of song lyrics he penned in a jail cell, federal authorities allege.
Jury selection begins Monday in Brooklyn Federal Court for the trial of John Pena, 32, who’s accused of personally seeing to two slayings after his gang, the Gorilla Stone Mafia, was brought low by a rival gang’s killing spree.
He killed one of his victims, a romantic rival named Francisco Gonzalez, as he slept next to Pena’s ex-girlfriend, then two years later rapped about it with this line, “left his brains on them sheets, man what was he thinkin?” according to court filings by prosecutors, who aim to have the lyrics played at trial.
Pena, who goes by the nicknames “Tragedy” and “Don Tragg” is also accused of executing Gorilla Stone Mafia turncoat Mark Bajandas, 26, outside the Stapleton Houses on Hill St. in March 2021.
Bajandas had defected from the Stapleton-based gang to join its rival, the “Bugatti,” which operated out of Mariners Harbor, another neighborhood on Staten Island’s North Shore.
Pena was losing face in the gang after a trio of unanswered killings, including the March 2020 slaying of a Gorilla Stone member named Avanti Brock. Brock’s death caused a rift in Pena’s gang and led to Bajandas’ defection, the feds say.
Resentment began to brew among Pena’s underlings who thought he was “not doing more to take revenge,” federal prosecutors wrote, “which, in turn, led him to commit the two murders with which he is charged to maintain his status in the gang.”
Bajandas was gunned down at an outdoor memorial for Brock on March 10, 2021.
Lights illuminate a basketball court at the Stapleton Houses low-income housing complex in the Staten Island borough of New York, Wednesday, June 8, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Pena rapped about both killings in the “Revenge is Glorious” video, which was posted on YouTube in 2023, after he was locked up on federal charges, the feds say.
“That boy got rocked, he was tryna play a middle man,” Pena rapped. “He saw the flash, heard a bang, and then his body dropped / see all that switchin’ all that dissin’, that’s what got him whacked. … tag his toe at the morgue, put him on a shelf / I eat for real shoot to kill, them n—-s think I’m playin.”
The feds allege those lyrics are specifically about Bandajas.
He also wrote on his Facebook page, “Since 3/10 My Life Been Drama Free,” the feds said, alleging Pena is referring to Bandajas’ nickname, “Drama.”
And the lyrics found in his cell at Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, make more references to the killings, including the lines, “Kuz I Turn all my opps into ghost / Francisco I mix them N / Mark / A . . . shhh,” the feds allege.
Pena went on the run after the Bandajas slaying, then re-surfaced three months later to kill Gonzalez, shooting him several times in the head while he was sleeping, the feds said. Gonzalez was a member of the Original Stacks gang.
Pena’s ex-girlfriend, who was sleeping nearby, was uninjured, and Pena made incriminating statements to her in recorded jail calls, the feds allege. When the woman told him, “A real n—- would have woke the n—- up and look the n—- in his face, but you ain’t do that,” Pena responded, “Now I’m not no real n—-,” according to court documents
Pena’s defense team is trying to keep the lyrics away from the jury, saying they’re too generic and inflammatory.
“The lyrics do not provide detail where certain criminal acts occurred, how they were committed, who committed them, when they were committed, or who the specific victims were,” Pena’s lawyers wrote. “Even the lyrics that name specific people do not go on to describe with any specifics what the author did, or plans to do to avenge that person. In totality, the lyrics offered by the government are hyperbolic posturing that defines rap music.”
As for the Facebook post, the defense lawyers write, “The plain reading of the statement, however, only shows Mr. Pena’s knowledge that ‘drama,’ aka Mr. Bajandas, is no longer alive. … While the statement shows indifference towards Mr. Bajandas’s passing, it does not take credit for the murder.”
His attorney Adam Bolotin declined to comment Sunday.