Jeremy Allen guilty of first-degree murder after jury finds he tortured Christopher Hahn before killing him in East Quogue home

A Suffolk jury convicted Jeremy Allen of first-degree murder in the 2024 beating, suffocation and stabbing death of his friend at his East Quogue home, finding that Allen tortured his victim over several hours.

The jury reached its verdict Wednesday after a little over two hours of deliberations in a case that featured extensive surveillance footage from Allen's home, which showed the victim's final hours as he bled and gasped for breath. Allen was also found guilty of tampering with evidence.

Christopher Hahn, 43, of Hampton Bays, was repeatedly struck in the head with an aluminum baseball bat before being dragged to the back deck of Allen’s home in the early morning hours of Sept. 28, 2024 — an attack so gruesome that police had to use fingerprints to positively identify Hahn.

Hahn's family members, who were in the courtroom for the verdict, declined to comment to Newsday.

Allen viciously beat Hahn with a bat, suffocated him with a garbage bag and watched him "writhing in pain" and then stabbed him in the neck — conduct that amounted to torture — over a period of six hours and 21 minutes, Assistant District Attorney Elena Tomaro told jurors in closing arguments Wednesday morning.

"You’re going to die tonight, [expletive]," Allen said to Hahn, according to what prosecutors said was captured on video.

Allen’s "sinister mocking" of Hahn, much of it delivered to the victim in a whisper, showed he took a "perverse pleasure" in the "prolonged murder," Tomaro said.

Holding a crime scene photo of Hahn's dead body for the jury to see, the prosecutor reminded the jury of surveillance video that showed Allen sitting in a chair watching Hahn "slowly gasping for breath and suffocating."

"This is the defendant's enjoyment," Tomaro said of the photo showing Hahn's body slumped on the wooden deck, his arms bloodied and a trash bag over his head. "This is what he was looking at."

The prosecutor said Allen smirked as Hahn suffered.

"He was groaning, trying to roll himself away," Tomaro said.

Allen tied a trash bag under Hahn’s chin and listened to him gasp for air, she said.

"Why would anyone do that unless they wanted to prolong his death?" Tomaro said. Allen then "very slowly" stabbed Hahn in the neck with a fillet knife, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Colin Astarita, however, argued in his closing argument that Allen had "blacked out" from a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills.

He said while Hahn's killing was a "horrible event" there was not enough evidence to support the prosecution's theory that Allen tortured Hahn and "took pleasure in it."

Astarita admitted his client had committed second-degree murder, which would have meant the possibility of parole.

But he urged the jury to acquit his client of first-degree murder, which calls for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

"Hitting someone in the head is not what I would call torture," said Astarita, of Hampton Bays.

Tomaro rejected the notion that Allen had blacked out, saying that theory was "debunked by his lies" to police, including that no one had been at his house that morning before he later admitted that Hahn had been there.

If he had really blacked out, he would have simply told police he didn't remember, she said. Tomaro also pointed out that Allen is a heavy man and admitted alcoholic.

"He said he drank two beers and one shot," said Tomaro, who asked the jury if it was credible to believe that amount of alcohol could cause "a man of his size" to have that reaction.

The prosecution's closing argument was punctuated by the cries of the victim's family.

Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei abruptly interrupted Tomaro's statement by shouting "stop! retire the jury!" in a command for the court officers to remove the jury from the courtroom.

While directly addressing the family, Mazzei said he felt for them, but directed three sobbing women — one of whom he referred to as Mrs. Hahn — to stop crying or leave.

"The jury is looking at you," Mazzei shouted at the grieving family. "It's horrible what happened to him but you can't disturb the courtroom."

Allen was arrested on the day of the killing after a landscaper he called to help clean up blood splatter from his walls and floors contacted Southampton police, who Allen had referred to as "corrupt," according to the prosecution. The landscaper had seen legs and feet jutting out from under a grill cover that Allen's dog had nudged.

Allen called the landscaper, who had done work in the past for Allen's mother, because he wasn't in the country legally and Allen thought he would be afraid to contact police, Tomaro said.

Allen was apparently intending to flee before his arrest, Tomaro said, pointing to a suitcase inside his home that was filled with clothes.

Text messages entered into evidence showed that Hahn thought Allen owed him $1,000 from a boat deal they made together years earlier. But the longtime friends agreed to meet that night, appearing to bond over their shared recovery efforts.

After killing Hahn, Allen texted him that he was going to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

"Life is good," Allen wrote.

The judge set sentencing for Feb. 26.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.