Federal Court in Brooklyn — File
Two Bronx gang members who admitted to five Long Island carjackings have been sentenced to multiple years in prison, authorities announced Tuesday, April 21.
Jaquell Blackwell, 21, got five years and three months for his role in three of the gunpoint robberies, the Justice Department said. Abdoul Azika, also 21, was sentenced to seven years and three months.
“The defendants repeatedly terrorized and harmed unsuspecting New Yorkers during a series of armed carjackings,” FBI agent James C. Barnacle Jr. said.
Both men were first arrested back in September 2023 as part of a 110-count gang indictment against the “5zzly” crew of the Bronx-based Blood Hound Brims gang. In August 2025, Blackwell copped to three carjackings, including one where he worked with Azika, according to the feds.
In June 2022 in Garden City, Blackwell and fellow gang members pulled guns on a victim, took control of his vehicle, pulled him out and beat him up, then put him back in and took him to various ATMs, forcing him to withdraw money and hand it over, investigators said.
Then in March 2023, Blackwell, Azika, and others snuck up on a man in Garden City, told him to “get the f— out” of his car at gunpoint and took off with the vehicle, the feds said.
In another carjacking in June 2023 in Elmont, Blackwell and other gang members discussed how they should “just shoot” their victim because they “don’t need him,” but they settled on yanking him out of the car, beating him on the ground, and then driving away, investigators said.
While Blackwell was sentenced Tuesday, Azika was sentenced back in December 2025, authorities said. He admitted to two carjackings on the same day, June 5, 2022, one in South Farmingdale and another in Massapequa, according to the Justice Department.