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Both murders took place in the vicinity of 128th Street and Rockaway Boulevard, where Hamilton and Jones managed a drug spot, according to federal officials.
By Forum Staff
Two men have been indicted for their roles in two murders committed in 1992 in South Ozone Park, federal prosecutors recently announced.
Darin Hamilton, 60, of South Ozone Park, is charged with the intentional murder of Anthony Lloyd while engaged in narcotics trafficking; and Hamilton and Jerome James, 54, of West Virginia, are charged with the murder of Robert Arroyo while engaged in narcotics trafficking, as well as conspiracy to do the same, according to officials.
As detailed in the indictment and the government’s detention memorandum, Hamilton and Jones were members of a Queens-based crew that called itself “Black Rain” and sold narcotics at several locations on Rockaway Boulevard in the early 1990s. Specifically, the crew sold heroin under the brand name “Black Rain,” cocaine under the brand name “White Lightning” and crack cocaine under the brand name “Thunder.” The gang committed acts of violence, including homicide, to protect its profitable operation.
Both murders took place in the vicinity of 128th Street and Rockaway Boulevard, where Hamilton and Jones managed a drug spot. As alleged, in June 1992, Hamilton shot and killed Anthony Lloyd, whom he believed had stolen from Black Rain.
Two months later, in August 1992, Hamilton and Jones recruited and paid two members of Black Rain to murder Robert Arroyo, whom they believed was a police informant. In their first attempt, the recruits mistakenly shot another man they incorrectly believed to be Arroyo. The victim survived his wounds. On Sept. 8, 1992, at Hamilton and Jones’s direction, the two recruits located Arroyo on a crowded street and shot him multiple times, killing him.
“Investigations grow cold with the passage of time, but investigators don’t stop searching for evidence they need to bring the suspects involved to justice,” said FBI NY Assistant Director-in-Charge Bill Sweeney, Jr. “Anthony Lloyd and Robert Arroyo were murdered nearly three decades ago, and their killers may have believed they were in the clear. However, the FBI New York Metro Safe Streets Task Force and our partners at the NYPD want this case to serve as a warning for those who believe they can let their guard down, we are still on the case and we won’t give up.”
City Police Commissioner Jim O’Neill added, “Today’s charges prove that the best investigators in the world do not ever forget victims, and they do not ever forget the justice that is owed to those victims’ families.”
