Two gang members plead guilty to murders, assaults in Nassau, Brooklyn, Queens, prosecutors say
Two Brooklyn gang members admitted their role Wednesday to a pair of murders in Baldwin Harbor and Hempstead, along with a slew of violent assaults in Nassau, Queens and Brooklyn from 2010 through 2016, federal prosecutors said.
Dylan Cruz, 30, and Richard Michel, 41, members of the Red Lane Gorillas set of the Bloods street gang, pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip to racketeering charges.
Cruz admitted his role in the two homicides, along with the 2010 attempted murder of a rival gang member in Roosevelt and conspiring to murder rival gang members in Queens in 2016, prosecutors said.
Michel confessed to participating in the 2012 Baldwin Harbor murder, the 2011 kidnapping and assault of a gang member in Hempstead and the 2016 attempted murder of a fellow Bloods member in Uniondale who he believed to be disloyal.
"With today’s guilty pleas, the defendants have admitted their involvement in a slew of senseless violent crimes, including murders, committed in furtherance of a criminal enterprise, the Bloods gang," said Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Cruz's defense attorney, Jeremy Schneider of Manhattan did not respond to a request for comment while Michel's lawyer, Murray Singer of Port Washington, declined to comment.
Court filings and statements from the defendants showed that Cruz, Michel and other members of the Red Lane Gorillas engaged in a violent gang war against rival crews, including the Crips and the 5-9 Brims set of the Bloods throughout Nassau, Queens and Brooklyn.
Both men admitted the July 2012 killing of Anthony Richard, who they wrongly suspected of assisting the Crips in the 2010 murder of a Bloods member, prosecutors said.
The men followed Richard to Baldwin Harbor and Cruz fired 15 shots into the victim’s parked vehicle at close range, officials said. Richard was killed and a passenger in the vehicle was wounded.
Cruz also confessed to the October 2014 broad daylight fatal shooting of Ehrik Williams in Hempstead. Cruz, prosecutors said, wrongly believed that Williams had robbed one of his associates.
Both men face a maximum sentence of life in prison when they are sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert.
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
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