Gang Member Targeting Hell’s Kitchen Gay Men Sentenced; Public Lewdness on 5 Train

Hell’s Kitchen Gay Bar ‘Slay Gang’ Member Sentenced

One of the most notorious crimes directed at Manhattan’s LGBTQ community reached another milestone Thursday, March 20 when Andre Butts, 30, was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in a series of 2022 robberies and murders. If Butts’s sentence, which was handed to him by Supreme Court Justice Felicia Mennin for two counts of robbery and one of conspiracy, seems light, it is. Butts is fortunate he wasn’t among the three crew members who have been convicted on, but yet to be sentenced for, murder and other charges. These three men are Jayqqan Hamilton, 37; Robert DeMaio, 36, and Jacob Barroso, 24.

Along with an accomplice, Shane Hoskins, Butts pled guilty on Jan. 7, 2025. Butts cut a striking appearance in court, with thickly muscled arms and torso, as well as a belly softened by his time on Rikers Island, squeezed into a skin-tight Under Armour top. Whatever else Butts has done in life, a serious weightlifting and/or calisthenics regimen was probably part of it. According to Department of Corrections records, Butts, a black male, was arrested on March 31, 2023, and upon his incarceration at Rikers Island, stood 5’10” and weighed 210 pounds. The two murder victims of the gang were Julio Ramirez, 25, on April 21, 2022, a Brooklyn social worker, and five weeks later, John Umberger, 33, a Washington, DC political consultant.

The gang’s modus operandi was to target gay men in Hell’s Kitchen, including at the Ritz Bar and Lounge, on West 46th Street, and the Q, a short-lived (June 2021 to March 2023), trouble-plagued venue at 975 Eighth Ave. near West 44th Street. The victims would then be drugged with a fentanyl-laced cocktail and robbed, including from their electronic banking accounts, with Ramirez and Umberger having the misfortune of overdosing.

Public Lewdness on 5 Train

On March 11, 2025, at approximately 9:30 p.m. aboard a southbound 5 train approaching Grand Central Station — 42nd Street, an unidentified male was performing a lewd act, believed to be masturbation.

Police are asking for the public’s help in finding the suspect, described as a thin black male, likely in his 30s or 40s, with a mustache and beard, the latter including a notable chin tuft. His visible attire is a thin black jacket over a red hoodie.

The public owes a debt of gratitude to the anonymous person who reported the incident to police. Because many or most such incidents go unreported.

Anyone with information regarding either incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.