A\u00a0Bronx man\u00a0been was sentenced Tuesday\u00a0to prison for his role\u00a0in a series of armed carjackings on Long Island\u00a0in which he and another defendant “used threats and violence to terrorize multiple victims,” federal prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Judge Dora L. Irizarry sentenced Jaquell Blackwell, 21, in\u00a0federal court in Brooklyn to 63 months in prison, Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a news release. Blackwell previously pleaded guilty to participating in a pair\u00a0of carjackings in Garden City and a third in Elmont.<\/p>\n
His sentencing followed that of another Bronx man in December for taking part in one of the Garden City\u00a0carjackings as well as two others in Massapequa and South Farmingdale. On Dec. 18,\u00a0Irizarry sentenced Abdoul Azika, 21, to 87 months in federal prison, Nocella said in the release.<\/p>\n
Both men “were members of the violent \u20185zzly\u2019 crew of the Bronx-based Blood Hounds Brims gang that has engaged in a string of armed carjackings and robberies across New York City and on Long Island,” the U.S. attorney said.<\/p>\n
“For more than a year, the defendants and their co-conspirators engaged in a pattern of armed carjackings targeting hardworking New Yorkers,” Nocella added.<\/p>\n
Blackwell’s defense attorney, Sabrina Shroff declined to comment when reached\u00a0by Newsday\u00a0late Tuesday. A defense attorney for Azika could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
The carjacking Azika and Blackwell committed together took place on March 19, 2023, when they opened the doors of a vehicle parked in a residential area of Garden City, brandished a gun and a knife at the\u00a0driver and ordered him to exit the vehicle, according to the release. The driver obeyed and the pair stole the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Blackwell and other co-conspirators committed armed carjackings on June 26, 2022 in Garden City and June 7, 2023 in Elmont, Nocella said. In both instances, the drivers were beaten. During the 2022 carjacking, the victim was initially dragged out of his car, then forced back in and taken to\u00a0ATMs to try and withdraw cash.<\/p>\n
Azika and co-conspirators brandished guns and beat drivers during two armed vehicle robberies on June 5, 2022 that occurred in Massapequa and South Farmingdale,\u00a0according to the release.<\/p>\n
Nicholas Grasso covers breaking news for Newsday. A Long Island native, he previously worked at several community newspapers and lifestyle magazines based on the East End.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0Bronx man\u00a0been was sentenced Tuesday\u00a0to prison for his role\u00a0in a series of armed carjackings on Long Island\u00a0in which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,303,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-205522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-the-bronx","14":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","15":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}