{"id":240959,"date":"2026-05-22T20:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240959\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:40:09","slug":"bronx-man-gets-75-years-to-life-in-prison-for-umbrella-hotel-shooting-in-kew-gardens-that-killed-one-injured-two-others-da-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240959\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx man gets 75 years to life in prison for Umbrella Hotel shooting in Kew Gardens that killed one, injured two others: DA \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bronx gunman was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison on Friday for shooting up the old Umbrella Hotel<\/a> in Kew Gardens<\/a> on New Year\u2019s Day 2021, killing one man and injuring two others. <\/p>\n

Richard Swygert<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\"SwygertSwygert 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<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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\u2019s companions. A physical fight ensued between the two men.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo men were rushed to area hospitals and survived.Photo by Mari Estrella<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard Swygert opened fire in front of the former Umbrella Hotel on New Year\u2019s Day in 2021 committing the first homicide of that year,\u201d Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. \u201cThe bullets he unleashed killed one young man, critically injured another and left a third seriously wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe 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<\/p>\n

Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant sentenced Wygert\u00a0 on Friday to 75 years to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot normalize gun violence,\u201d Katz said. \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bronx gunman was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison on Friday for shooting up the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,69175,69176,129,131,130,69177],"class_list":["post-240959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-richard-swygert","tag-robert-deandre-williams","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-umbrella-hotel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240959","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=240959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}