Trio accused of robbing, fatally drugging men leaving NYC gay clubs had complete disregard to human life, prosecutors say

Defense attorneys for the cold-blooded trio accused of robbing and fatally drugging two young men after they left Manhattan gay bars three years ago said in their closing arguments this week that their clients may indeed be criminals — but they didn’t kill anyone.Prosecutors, however, said in Manhattan Supreme Court Thursday that the men’s deadly hustle — which allegedly targeted inebriated men leaving gay clubs in Hell’s Kitchen — was “executed with a complete disregard to human life.”And it left two corpses in its wake. “They preyed on unsuspecting young gay men,” Manhattan prosecutor Meghan Hast said in court about defendants Jayqwan Hamilton, Robert DeMaio and Jacob Barroso.“Don’t let them get away with it.”Authorities slapped all three with murder charges after a police investigation into a series of “drug-facilitated thefts” on Manhattan’s West Side in the spring of 2022.Prosecutors now say the suspects — who are allegedly part of a larger gang of drug-reliant robbers — killed 33-year-old political consultant John Umberger and 25-year-old Brooklyn social worker Julio Ramirez by giving them fentanyl-laced cocaine.Both Umberger and Ramirez died of “acute intoxication” from a mix of fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol and other drugs, the city medical examiner said last March.All three defendants have been charged with murder in Ramirez’s death, while Hamilton, 37, and DeMaio, 36, were charged similarly for Umberger’s fatal overdose of the lethal chemical cocktail.The three would use “drugs that contained fentanyl, a potent fast-acting opioid in order to incapacitate them quickly, to rob them,” Assistant District Attorney Emily Ching said during her opening statements, adding the suspects stole phones and credit cards to “drain their accounts and spend their money.”Then the gang callously left their “completely unresponsive and not breathing” victims to die — while they went on wild spending sprees with the stole...