A Bronx gunman was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison on Friday for shooting up the old Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens on New Year’s Day 2021, killing one man and injuring two others.
Richard Swygert, 24, was convicted at trial in March of murder in the second degree, two counts of attempted murder, assault in the first and second degree, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree following a three-week jury trial.
Swygert fatally shot Robert DeandreWilliams and wounded two others after a dispute erupted between factions of young people in front of the hotel.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
According to the charges and trial testimony, on Jan. 1, 2021, at approximately 1:09 a.m., Swygert and his companion entered the Umbrella Hotel on 82nd Avenue and Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens where they waited for the elevator. A few minutes later, the three victims exited the elevator and Swygert, and his group followed them to the main hotel lobby. Both groups left the hotel, and words were exchanged between one of the victims and one of Swygert’s companions. A physical fight ensued between the two men.
Swygert took out a gun and fired multiple rounds striking 20-year-old Robert Deandre Williams, of Rosedale, five times. He then fired at the second victim six times, striking him in the stomach, arms and legs. Swygert shot the third victim once in the leg.
Two men were rushed to area hospitals and survived.Photo by Mari Estrella
EMS rushed Williams to NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens where he was pronounced dead as the result of multiple gunshot wounds. Williams would have turned 21 the following day, instead his was the first murder recorded in New York City in 2021.
A 40-year-old victim was transported by EMS to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition and required life-saving emergency surgery as well as additional surgeries to save his leg from amputation.
The second surviving victim, a 20-year-old man, was transported by EMS to New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition and treated for a gunshot wound to the thigh.
Crime scene investigators recovered 13 spent shell casings from the front of the Umbrella Hotel, which permanently shuttered soon after the fatal shooting due to intense pressure from the Kew Gardens community.
“Richard Swygert opened fire in front of the former Umbrella Hotel on New Year’s Day in 2021 committing the first homicide of that year,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “The bullets he unleashed killed one young man, critically injured another and left a third seriously wounded.”
The Umbrella Hotel was forced to close soon after the homicide after the Kew Gardens community rallied against it, claiming it was a hotbed of criminal activity.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant sentenced Wygert on Friday to 75 years to life imprisonment.
“We cannot normalize gun violence,” Katz said. “A jury convicted the defendant of murder and he was sentenced today to 75 years to life in prison as a direct consequence of his criminal actions.”