Three men were charged on Monday, two of them with murder, in a series of fatal druggings at Manhattan gay bars that killed two people and have spread fear through the city’s L.G.B.T.Q. community.
The incidents, which occurred last year, have terrorized nightlife goers as the industry rebounds from the pandemic. They have also started a broader conversation about the use of widely available illegal drugs to incapacitate, rob and sometimes kill.
Justin Barroso, 30, and Robert DeMaio, 34, were charged with the murder of Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker. Mr. DeMaio was additionally charged with the murder of John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant. Both men were drugged at bars in Hell’s Kitchen, then were robbed using facial recognition technology on their phones and left for dead.
A third man, Andre Butts, was charged with robbery, identity theft, grand larceny and conspiracy, all charges that Mr. Barroso and Mr. DeMaio also face. A fourth man, Shane Hoskins, was also charged last week with robbery in connection with the cases.
The indictment also describes several other crimes that were not previously disclosed by police, including attacks on at least three people that prosecutors say were drugged and robbed by Mr. Barroso, Mr. Hoskins and Mr. Butts before and after the deadly attack on Mr. Ramirez.
It cites text messages among the attackers that suggest they frequented the Ritz, the Hell’s Kitchen bar where Mr. Ramirez was last seen alive.
Prosecutors believe the crimes were carried out by what they called “a crew” of attackers who preyed on people in Hell’s Kitchen, a gay nightlife district in Midtown Manhattan, slipping drugs to unsuspecting bar patrons and then leading them to a second location, sometimes their own homes, to rob them.
The Police Department said at least one suspect, Jayqwan Hamilton, remained at large on Monday. Lawyers for the men did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
In a statement, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, praised investigators and said the killings had shaken New Yorkers’ faith in the safety of the city’s nightlife.
“Our entire city continues to mourn the tragic losses of Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Umberger,” Mr. Bragg said. “In addition to the unimaginable pain their family and loved ones are enduring, I know that many other New Yorkers have feared for their own safety when out experiencing New York’s vibrant nightlife.”
Mr. Barroso, Mr. DeMaio and Mr. Butts were arraigned on Monday, almost one year after the death of Mr. Ramirez, who was killed after he left the Ritz, a bar on West 46th Street, last April.
Mr. Ramirez left in a taxi with a group of men who abandoned his body in the back of the car on the Lower East Side soon after, his family said they were told by the police. He was declared dead roughly 90 minutes after he left the bar, and his family said they discovered money taken from his accounts after he died.
The indictment accuses Mr. Butts, Mr. Barroso and Mr. Hamilton, who has not yet been arrested, of using financial apps to transfer $3,400 from Mr. Ramirez’s bank accounts to themselves.
One month later, Mr. Umberger, who was visiting New York from Washington, D.C., was killed after he left the Q, a gay club near the Ritz. A group of men were seen on surveillance video leading him into a car outside the bar, and his body was found five days later at a townhouse on the Upper East Side. His mother said $20,000 was taken from his accounts after he died.
The medical examiner ruled last month that both men were murdered in the course of a “drug-assisted theft” using similar drug cocktails that included fentanyl.
In the indictment, prosecutors said the assailants would target people they saw drinking in clubs, then “administer dangerous and illicit substances to them for the purpose of causing their incapacitation” and rob them once “they were unable to recall or recount those events.”
The indictment also said the men would communicate via text message and social media to plan their attacks. They would also plan what they would buy with the stolen money, chat about whether to go to bars in the rain and joke about rivalries within their group.
Drugs designed to cause incapacitation, sometimes popularly referred to as “date-rape drugs,” remain in a person’s system for only a short time and are difficult to detect on a drug test, medical experts say. None were found on the medical examiner’s toxicology report.
At first the Police Department, and many in the L.G.B.T.Q. community, regarded the deaths as accidental overdoses. But the families pushed for an investigation when they discovered the missing funds.
In an interview, Linda Clary, the mother of Mr. Umberger, thanked the Police Department for its work on the case.
“I feel relieved and I feel hopeful, but I also feel brokenhearted that these men made the choices they did,” she said. “None of this brings John back. We just want people to be safe, and we don’t want anyone else to suffer like we have.”
The Ramirez family did not respond to messages seeking comment on Monday, but Catie Savage, a friend of Mr. Ramirez, said she was frustrated it took almost a year to make progress in the case.
“It feels like a failure on the part of the system that it took so long,” said Ms. Savage. “They could have prevented more things from happening.”
The Police Department has said that the killings of Mr. Umberger and Mr. Ramirez appear to have been motivated by money and not anti-gay bias, and that a wave of similar crimes has struck both gay and straight bars across the city.
But the crimes have had a singular impact on the city’s tight-knit L.G.B.T.Q. community, which has weathered a series of challenges in recent years and drew attention to a problem that has stalked L.G.B.T.Q. nightlife for years: the use of easily obtainable drugs, such as GHB, which is used recreationally in small doses by some in the gay community, to incapacitate and rob people.
The Times interviewed over a dozen men who said they were drugged at gay bars and then robbed and left unconscious.
One man, Tyler Burt, who was attacked at an East Village bar in December 2021 and awoke in his apartment to find more than $25,000 of goods stolen from him, said his doctor suggested that he had been given GHB.
Liam Stack
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