Three Convicted for Murder of Two Gay Men
Three men have been found guilty of plotting to drug, incapacitate, and rob various gay nightlife patrons, resulting in two deaths.
A Manhattan jury convicted three men of murder for drugging two gay bar patrons as part of an elaborate robbery scheme, leading to their deaths.
The three men — 37-year-old Jayqwan Hamilton, 32-year-old Jacob Barroso, and 36-year-old Robert DeMaio — were also convicted of robbery and conspiracy for the drugging scheme.
Prosecutors alleged that the trio, along with other accomplices, would lurk outside Manhattan bars near closing time, hoping to encounter patrons — primarily young men — who were intoxicated after a night of drinking.
After chatting up their victims, the men would drug them with a fentanyl-laced cocktail and wait until they were incapacitated. The men would then steal victims’ wallets and use facial recognition technology on their smartphones to gain access to bank accounts, which were then drained of money. They used those funds, as well as the victims’ credit cards, to purchase various items, including liquor, sneakers, and designer clothes and accessories.
Two men — 33-year-old John Umberger, of Washington, D.C., and 25-year-old Julio Ramirez, of Brooklyn — both died from “acute intoxication” stemming from a mix of fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol, and other drugs, according to the city medical examiner’s office.
Ramirez’s body was left in the back of a taxi in April 2022, while Umberger died in a townhouse a month later, while his attackers took photos and videos of them partying next to his lifeless body.
At trial, prosecutors presented text messages showing that DeMaio was responsible for obtaining the fentanyl used to incapacitate the victims. Prosecutors also presented the jury with cell phone tower data, text exchanges, security video footage, and other evidence to track the defendants’ movements as they carried out their robberies and went on shopping binges with victims’ money.
The jury also heard accounts from other men who had survived similar drugging encounters.
One man 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. Another man said he could not remember inhaling a substance that another man held to his nose, as seen in a video shown to jurors.
On February 10, after four hours of deliberations, the jury found Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio guilty of all robbery, conspiracy, and murder charges against them in connection to Ramirez’s death, as well as additional guilty verdicts against Hamilton and DeMaio for burglary and Umberger’s murder.
The men could face anywhere from 25 years to life in prison.
“I know the families who lost their loved ones are still suffering from so much pain, and I hope this verdict can provide at least some measure of comfort,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement after the guilty verdicts were handed down.
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