NEW YORK – A federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, returned guilty verdicts Monday against Harvey Christian, Anthony Christian and Jason Quinn, for conspiracy to commit murder and other felony charges related to a drug ring that operated from a housing complex in the Clifton neighborhood of Staten Island.
All three defendants are facing up to life in prison, officials said.
“For all of their adult lives, the Christian brothers and their associates terrorized the residents of Park Hill, forcing them to live in fear of violence,” stated U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
Adding, “Today, their ability to earn money through crime comes to an end, and so does their rule of the streets. This verdict sends the message that that violence and drug-dealing have no place in our communities.”
For over two decades, officials said Harvey Christian, 42, also known as “Black,” and his brother, Anthony Christian, 41, also known as “Nitty,” led a violent narcotics distribution ring.
Jason Quinn, 40, was one of their most trusted underlings, according to officials. The trio lived in Staten Island.
In the mid-1990s, the Christian brothers and their associates, including Quinn, sought to take control of more drug territory in Park Hill. To do this, the defendants engaged in massive gun battles for months.
During one of the battles, in May 1995, law enforcement recovered 77 shell casings inside a residential building, outside on the street, and on the roof.
In 1999, Anthony Christian ordered another member of the enterprise to murder a rival drug dealer named Corey Brooker. In the course of looking for Brooker, the enterprise member had a dispute with Brooker’s associate Jerome Estella.
Anthony Christian then authorized the other enterprise member to murder Estella, and provided him with the 9 millimeter handgun he used to then murder Estella.
In the year before their arrests in 2011, multiple search warrants and arrests related to members of the organization and their associates were executed in and around Park Hill and elsewhere in New York. These searches and arrests resulted in the seizure of firearms and ammunition, including a Mac-11 pistol, as well as large quantities of crack and powder cocaine, authorities said.
During a search of the Christian brothers’ apartment in the Park Hill housing complex in February 2010, the NYPD recovered multiple bullet-proof vests, crack-cocaine and marijuana, officials said.