Global Courant 2023-05-24 00:18:34
New York City police are investigating another drug-induced robbery linked to a criminal scheme — largely targeting men who frequent gay bars — that left at least two men dead, police sources say. The previously unreported incident occurred just days before several suspects in the scheme were arrested and charged.
Between September 2021 and August 2022, the suspects drugged their victims to access their cell phones and robbed them, often using facial recognition technology, prosecutors said. Two of the victims, John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant, and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, were found dead as a result of the drug-induced robberies, prosecutors said.
Michael, a 30-year-old gay man, is the most recent of at least 16 victims. He first came forward at NBC News asking that his full name not be published for fear of retaliation from those involved. On March 25, Michael said, he was drugged and robbed of about $5,000 after visiting The Eagle NYC, a gay bar in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood where at least three similar incidents had previously been reported. The Eagle NYC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Authorities are investigating the March 25 incident and is linked to the same “citywide robbery pattern” that led to six suspects being charged between March 29 and April 13, police sources say. The sources said no specific charges have been filed against Michael.
Four of the six suspects had been arrested months earlier on grand larceny charges related to the scheme. Three were released soon after because they could not be held in custody under New York’s bail law.
Michael said he was drunk when he and his friends were approached by three men after they left the bar around 3:45 am. As far as he could remember and what the police told him after reviewing the bar’s security footage, he took the men in a taxi. His friends went home in a separate taxi.
He said he vaguely remembers being in an unfamiliar apartment before regaining consciousness several hours later without his cell phone. When he came to, he said, a woman he didn’t recognize, but who knew his name, was shaking him on the side of an East Harlem street about 80 blocks north of the Eagle.
“She wasn’t trying to help, the way she spoke to me,” Michael said. “She was annoyed and tried to get rid of me.”
Michael said he hailed a cab and returned to Brooklyn. He woke up later in the day and realized his bank accounts had been emptied, except for about $40, which he used to pay for the cab ride home.
That afternoon, Michael said, he reported the robbery to authorities, saying he believed the three men drugged him, stole his phone, and then used facial recognition technology to unlock it and access his bank accounts.
“I drink like, you know, generally most weekends, and I use cocaine recreationally, so I know what these substances must feel like. And the way I like to be completely obscured have no memory at all – that’s never happened to me before. I’ve never felt this way before,” Michael said. “And the way I felt for the entire next two days isn’t like a hangover or withdrawal I’ve ever experienced.”
An NYPD spokesperson confirmed that a 30-year-old man filed a report after “$5,000 worth of unauthorized charges were made to his checking and savings account after spending time with three unknown men.”
Four days after Michael’s robbery, a Manhattan grand jury indicted five of the six defendants in connection with the scheme. A sixth suspect was charged in April.
“To be in what I thought was a kind of safe space, like the Eagle – a place where I feel safe and welcome – to be in that environment and take advantage of my own drunken kindness in this way, it’s a big violation.” Michael said. “It makes me feel unsafe in a place that has been my home for a long time.”
Authorities have previously stated that while most of the victims in the plan are gay men, they were targeted for financial gain and not because of their sexual orientation. A separate group is suspected of committing similar crimes against 26 victims who mostly frequent bars without an LGBTQ affiliation.
