Brooklyn Crips gang member killed his leader to avenge pal’s death: feds
A Brooklyn Crips member was charged Tuesday with a nearly decade-old murder, accused of whacking his gang’s leader to avenge the death of a close friend.
Jason “Twin” Soto, 36, lured Cypress Gangsta Crips leader Shakim Rivera out of a Brooklyn apartment in 2015 and shot him to death at a time when the gang was feuding with a rival Bloods faction and waging an internal battle, according to federal prosecutors.
Soto blamed Rivera for the death of another member of the gang, Demetrius “Duke” Graham, who he thought of as a younger brother, prosecutors said.
Graham was killed on Feb. 19, 2015, by two gunmen his fellow Crips believe were dispatched by Rivera, and that led his underlings to turn on him, considering him a “traitor,” according to court filings.
“This comrade of ours was no longer a friend of ours, and that envy made him a monster,” Soto wrote of Rivera in what the feds describe as an “autobiographical manuscript,” according to court filings.
He allegedly wrote of Graham, “I failed him as a brother, but would never fail him again.”
The day of Graham’s murder, Soto joined a phone call made by his twin brother, who was locked up at Rikers Island, and told him that he planned to kill Rivera. “I’m touching him,” Soto said during the call, while his twin tried to get him to “stop talking” on the recorded line, according to court filings.
Soto got on a bus from Pennsylvania and headed for Brooklyn, the feds allege. On Feb. 22, he lured Rivera out of an East New York apartment to a spot on Bayview Place in Canarsie, and shot him in the back of the head, the feds allege.
“This indictment makes clear that my office and our law enforcement partners are relentless in our pursuit of violent gang members who have committed murders and harmed communities like the Cypress Hills Houses for far too long,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Tuesday.
The feds describe Soto as a key player in the Cypress Gangsta Crips, with a violent past that includes a 2005 shooting and a 2007 armed robbery at a Pennsylvania jewelry store.
A federal investigation into violence in the Cypress Hills Houses in the mid-2010s revealed that his gang, a subset of the Eight Trey Crips, held sway in the “Backside” and “Teamside” parts of the complex on Linden Blvd. and the west end of Sutter Ave., while their Bloods rivals controlled the “Frontside” on the east end of Sutter.
Rivera, for his part, was suspected in the murder of a Bloods member, Rayvon Henriques, in July 2014 as part of the feud.
In his manuscript, the feds allege, Soto described his philosophy about gang life, explaining how being a Crip meant never backing down from a fight or talking to law enforcement — and how a shootout is “one of many ceremonies a youth must go through in the pursuit of manhood.”
Soto pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court on Tuesday and was ordered held without bail. His lawyer declined to comment.
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