Photo Courtesy of Google
The Ravenswood Houses are in Long Island City.
By Forum Staff
Seven men have been arrested following a long-term investigation of drug trafficking within the Ravenswood Houses in Long Island City between March 2018 and April 2019, Chief Assistant District Attorney John Ryan, on behalf of Queens DA Richard Brown, announced Monday.
The DA’s Office identified the alleged ring leader of the drug dealing crew as Jamarl Gilmore, 38, of Long Island City. Gilmore was arrested in August 2018 and charged with first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and other offenses. That case is pending and he faces between 15 and 30 years in prison if convicted. The investigation into the crew operating within the Ravenswood Houses continued after Gilmore’s arrest; the other main defendants apprehended last week include Donte Wiggins, 38, of Queens Village, and Damein Walker, 40, and Gerard Dennis, 26, both of Long Island City.
Ryan, who was joined on Monday by Police Commissioner Jim O’Neill and City Department of Investigations Commissioner Margaret Garnett, reported that three other men were also arrested and variously charged in separate complaints with criminal sale of a controlled substance and other crimes.
According to authorities, detectives of the NYPD’s Queens North Gang Squad and assistant district attorneys within the Queens DA’s Narcotics Investigations Bureau, pursuant to a court-authorized eavesdropping warrant issued in May 2018, have been listening in on conversations between various members of the alleged drug-dealing crew. Individuals called various defendants to order drugs, and meets were set up to exchange cash for cocaine and heroin.
According to the charges, when cops cuffed Wiggins last Wednesday, he allegedly said that he had “cocaine in his buttocks.” Indeed, one of the arresting officers allegedly recovered a plastic bag containing cocaine from Wiggins’s buttocks. Police also executed a court-authorized search warrant on Wiggins’s 215th Place residence and allegedly recovered two .40-caliber semi-automatic handguns, magazines, and ammunition.
According to the complaints, over the course of the investigation, undercover detectives—posing as buyers—allegedly purchased both cocaine and heroin from various members of the Ravenswood crew. Executing court-authorized search warrants at eight locations in Queens, cops allegedly recovered a total of three firearms, high-capacity magazines, nearly 100 rounds of ammunition, cocaine, marijuana, and a scale.
Ryan said that members of the Ravenswood crew who have been charged “in this case turned a housing complex filled with families and numerous children into an illicit drug emporium. Peddling cocaine and heroin, the crew made multiple sales to ‘buyers’ who happened to be undercover detectives, as well as individuals who placed orders by phone. This kind of lawless drug distribution operation will not be tolerated in Queens County.”
Garnett added, “Ridding our city’s public housing of dangerous gang and drug activity is an important step towards creating safer communities for residents.”
