NEW YORK – Three brothers were convicted on Thursday of a 1994 murder where a rival drug dealer was shot in broad daylight in retaliation for selling crack on the defendants’ turf, federal officials said
Following a three-week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn returned the guilty verdicts against the three brothers Brian Gill, 46, David Gill, 43, and Samuel McIntosh, 40, for the drug-related murder of Michael Dawson on June 22, 1994.
Brian Gill and David Gill were also convicted of a narcotics trafficking conspiracy between 2011 and 2013.
Officials said the charges arose out of the defendants’ long-time control of a drug trafficking organization that operated in the Park Hill housing complex in the Clifton neighborhood of Staten Island.
Over the course of two decades, the defendants intermittently operated a lucrative drug distribution business in Park Hill, Staten Island, officials said. Dawson was murdered in broad daylight in the street outside of 160 Park Hill Ave., a profitable place for crack dealing.
Shortly after Dawson’s homicide, Brian Gill fled Staten Island. In 2011, when Brian Gill returned to Park Hill after 17 years away, he launched another crack dealing business in Park Hill from his residence. David helped Brian Gill with the drug business, according to authorities.
The defendants are facing up to life in prison, officials said.
“For years, these defendants made drug dealing and violence a daily reality for the law-abiding residents of Park Hill,” U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch stated on Thursday. “Today, these three men have been held accountable for the lives they have destroyed and the harm they have done to one of our communities.”