Two suspects arrested in case of having fatally drugged their victims to rob them in New York

NEW YORK — The second of three murder suspects publicly identified by the NYPD over the weekend has surrendered to authorities in connection with the overdose deaths of two men at LGBTQ+ bars in Manhattan last year.

Robert Demaio, 34, of Brooklyn, turned himself in to authorities Monday morning after an indictment was issued in the death of John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant who was found dead last May, police said. senior police officials.

Demaio is one of at least two men seen going in and out of the Upper East Side apartment where Umberger was staying the night of his murder, officials say. He, along with Jayqwan Hamilton, were also reportedly seen in videos recovered from Demaio’s phone taken inside the unit. In the background, an unconscious Umberger could be seen.

Detectives could have linked Demaio and Hamilton to the crime through video evidence, as well as rental car records linking the former to a red Dodge Durango he was driving the night of Umberger’s death.

Demaio turned himself in to police two days after the arrest of Jacob Barroso, a 30-year-old man from New Britain, Connecticut. Both men face charges of murder, robbery, robbery and conspiracy. Hamilton is still on the run.

Barroso’s charges stem from the death of Julio Ramírez, a 25-year-old Brooklyn social worker who was murdered last April.

Police searching for the work of a large ring of burglars identified the three men on Saturday in connection with the deaths of Ramirez and Umberger, who, after a night in Hell’s Kitchen, were found dead of acute poisoning. The medical examiner’s office said multiple drugs were found in his system, including fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and lidocaine.

The three men are believed to be part of the Flight Model 188. According to the police, this team is responsible for at least 17 burglaries in the county, mainly in the village and Hell’s Kitchen.

The leading theory is that the victims were targeted for money, not their sexual orientation, but the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force continues to investigate the potential bias factor as a precaution. , officials said.

Two police sources said at least four suspects had been arrested in connection with the robberies, but no arrests had been made in connection with the murders until Saturday.

A second investigation, known as Robbery Pattern 90, reportedly involved a different team that robbed 26 people. There are multiple suspects in the case, which is before a Manhattan jury, law enforcement officials said. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An NYPD spokesperson declined to comment immediately, citing an ongoing investigation.

The two law enforcement officials said the murder of famed New York fashion designer Kathryn Marie Gallagher, resulting from a drug-facilitated death, may be part of Robbery Pattern 90. The Medical Examiner’s Office said last week that Gallagher died of acute poisoning from the combined effects of alcohol, fentanyl, ethanol and p-fluorofentanyl.

The 35-year-old internationally acclaimed designer, who had more than two dozen collections under her own label Katie Gallagher and appeared at New York and Paris Fashion Week, died in July 2022. She was working on a collection for the autumn 2022. when she was found dead in her flat in Eldridge Street.

The medical examiner’s office said in early March that Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, and Umberger, a 33-year-old consultant, died of lethal combinations of fentanyl, cocaine, lidocaine and ethanol found in their blood. New York police said it was lidocaine that ultimately incapacitated them.

Ramirez also had heroin in his blood, the medical examiner’s office found. He determined that both men died of drug-facilitated robbery, suggesting that they had been drugged for this purpose. Both had their bank accounts emptied.

Ramírez was found in a taxi in the early morning hours of April 21, 2022. He was last seen leaving the Ritz Bar and Lounge on West 46th Street with a group of men and they all got into a taxi, although Ramírez was alone in the back seat when the driver realized he was unconscious. The taxi driver found a policeman to report the unresponsive passenger and Ramírez was pronounced dead in a hospital. Neither his wallet nor his phone were on him.

Later, relatives say they found $20,000 missing from their accounts.

Umberger was found dead in late May of an apparent drug overdose at his employer’s Upper East Side townhouse where he was staying. Surveillance video showed him leaving the Q NYC club on Eighth Avenue, with several men supporting him. They also stole money from his bank account. More details on this timeline are unclear.

However, his mother alerted the police to his disappearance and Umberger was found on June 1. She said her phone and credit cards were missing, along with $25,000 from her bank account.

Umberger’s mother, Linda Clary, said Wednesday that the allegations gave her “some sense of affirmation” about the circumstances of her son’s death.

“These people are predators and they seek out lonely people, and they’re like a pack of hyenas preying on the most vulnerable or isolated person,” Clary said.

New York robbery teams linked to mystery drugs and deaths

Authorities said the deaths appear to be part of a series of people who were poisoned with narcotics in what investigators say were plots by criminal gangs to incapacitate and rob people in New York bars and nightclubs .

The killings, at least five in all, police say, date back months and appear to be the work of different teams, operating independently but using similar tactics, police and prosecutors said in an update to December.

The men surreptitiously slip revelers dangerous levels of drugs to knock them out, then take their wallets and phones, sometimes using their digital banking information to drain their accounts, authorities said. In an earlier incident, Nurbu Sherpa, a 29-year-old chef, was found dead on the sidewalk after leaving a bar where he was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.

Other men have told how they were drugged by strangers and woke up to find they had no money.

Many crimes remain unsolved, but the Manhattan District Attorney previously announced that a suspect, Allen Kenwood of the Bronx, had been charged with murder in Sherpa’s death and in the murder of 26-year-old Ardijan Berisha.

Berisha, of South Salem, New York, and a friend passed out on the sidewalk in July 2022 after drinking at a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Kenwood drugged his two victims with fentanyl, prosecutors said, then robbed them. He is charged in three other cases in which the victims survived. The status of his case was unclear on Wednesday.

Anyone with information on the theft patterns is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.