One of the five men convicted in the 2022 drugging and robbery of patrons at gay bars in Manhattan was slapped with eight years in prison on Thursday.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Felicia Mennin handed down the sentence to Andre Butts, 30, who previously pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and a conspiracy charge for his role in the incidents that sent shockwaves through New York City’s LGBTQ community. Butts and another man, Shane Hoskins, 32, on Jan. 7 copped to their roles in the chilling string of robberies.
A jury convicted three other men, Jayqwan Hamilton, 37, Robert DeMaio, 36, and Jacob Barroso, 32, of 24 counts, including murder, robbery, burglary and conspiracy, on Feb. 10, stemming from the murders of 33-year-old John Umberger and 25-year-old Julio Ramirez. Hamilton and DeMaio were accused of luring both men to their deaths, with Barroso accused of participating in Ramirez’s murder.
“Andre Butts is now facing accountability for his role in this deadly and callous conspiracy,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Thursday. “He admitted to participating in multiple robberies using fentanyl-laced drugs to incapacitate victims, so he and his co-defendants could drain money from their financial accounts.
“While it is fortunate that the victims targeted by Mr. Butts survived, I know they are still suffering from the trauma of this incident and hope they can continue to heal.”
Members of the predatory robbery crew were arrested and indicted in 2022 and 2023 after investigators discovered a link between the druggings and robberies. They were accused of singling out patrons at Manhattan gay bars and befriending them, then offering them cigarettes and drugs laced with fentanyl to render them unconscious before absconding with thousands of dollars.
Butts joined Hamilton and DeMaio in targeting a man outside The Q, a gay nightclub in Hell’s Kitchen, on March 18, 2022. They then headed back to the victim’s Union Square hotel, where they plied him with fentanyl-laced drugs, before loading his body onto a luggage cart, according to court records.
When the victim woke up, he realized his phone was gone — tracking it to Brooklyn — and that transactions had been charged to his Apple Cash and Cash App accounts.
Weeks later, on April 8, Butts, Hamilton, Barroso and Hoskins targeted another victim at the same nightclub, also going back to his apartment and feeding him a cocktail of fentanyl-laced narcotics, according to charging papers. The victim in that incident woke up to find his phone and credit cards stolen and discovered fraudulent charges made at a Prada store and Bloomingdale’s.
Hamilton, who prosecutors said was the crew’s ringleader, DeMaio and Barroso set their sights on Ramirez, a Brooklyn social worker, outside The Ritz Bar in Hell’s Kitchen on April 21. They drugged him at the bar and lounge with fentanyl and ultimately left him unconscious in the back of a cab, robbing thousands of dollars from his online accounts and spending it on sneakers and clothing, according to trial evidence.
Ramirez was transported to a hospital and was declared dead less than two hours later.
Almost a month later, on May 28, DeMaio and Hamilton targeted Umberger at The Q, going back to an Upper East Side apartment where Umberger was staying and leaving him incapacitated after loading him up with fentanyl-laced drugs, jurors heard at trial. They stole $2,000 from his bank accounts.
Umberger, a political consultant and Washington, D.C., resident, was found dead at the location four days later.
Hamilton, DeMaio and Barroso are set to be sentenced in May. Hoskins is expected to be sentenced to an agreed-upon term of eight years in prison next month.