{"id":367283,"date":"2026-10-07T22:36:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367283\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:36:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:36:53","slug":"brooklyn-crips-member-goes-on-trial-for-revenge-murder-of-his-gangs-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367283\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Crips member goes on trial for revenge murder of his gang’s leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Brooklyn Crips member executed his gang\u2019s leader<\/a> to avenge the death of his best friend, and to put a quick end to a budding civil war brewing in the group, prosecutors said at the admitted gangbanger\u2019s federal murder trial Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Jason Soto, 37, fired a bullet into the head of Cypress Gangsta Crips leader Shakim Rivera<\/a> on Feb. 22,\u00a0 2015, convinced that Rivera had ordered the slaying of another member of the gang, Demetrius Graham, three days earlier, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andres Palacio told jurors in Brooklyn Federal Court.<\/p>\n

\"OnOn Feb. 22, 2015, Jason Soto allegedly lured Shakim Rivera out of an East New York apartment to a spot on Bayview Place in Canarsie, and shot him in the back of the head. (Ken Murray \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Soto, Rivera and Graham \u2014 who went by the nicknames \u201cTwin,\u201d \u201cStacks\u201d and \u201cDuke\u201d \u2014 were a tight-knit team as they headed up the Cypress Gangsta Crips, making good money as they dealt drugs in and around the Cypress Hills Houses, prosecutors allege.<\/p>\n

But Graham started selling drugs for a different group, and Rivera started to resent him for not bringing some of the proceeds back to the gang, Palacio said.<\/p>\n

So Rivera took action. He ordered two of his loyalists to break into Graham\u2019s home on Bradford St. in East New York and shoot the 23-year-old gang leader to death<\/a> as he slept on his girlfriend\u2019s bed Feb. 19, 2015, according to the feds.<\/p>\n

\u201cStacks went rogue, because he made that decision on his own,\u201d Palacio said. \u201cFor members of the gang who were Team Duke, there was very little doubt that Stacks ordered the murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soto was squarely in Team Duke, Palacio said.<\/p>\n

He saw Graham as a little brother, and in a phone call with his twin sibling, Jonathan, who was locked up on Rikers Island, and two others, he vowed revenge, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got Duke! I got Duke!\u201d he exclaimed on that call, expressing how badly he wanted to avenge his friend, Palacio said.<\/p>\n

Soto said he was ready to \u201ctouch\u201d the killer, grousing, \u201cTrying to insult my intelligence like he don\u2019t know what he, like he care. Ain\u2019t shed a tear, ain\u2019t shed a mad nothing\u2026. I got this s\u2014, I got it. I ain\u2019t leaving until something happens,\u201d according to a transcript of the call filed by prosecutors in June.<\/a><\/p>\n

All the while, his twin, Jonathan Soto, was trying to calm him down, warning him, \u201cYo, chill. You can\u2019t, you can\u2019t really talk like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Feb. 22, Soto got his vengeance, luring Rivera to a spot outside a home on Bayview Place in Canarsie, where he and an associate shot Rivera and drove off, Palacio said.<\/p>\n

\"OnOn Feb. 22, 2015, Jason Soto allegedly lured Shakim Rivera out of an East New York apartment to a spot on Bayview Place in Canarsie and shot him in the back of the head. (Ken Murray \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat night, Team Duke took control of the gang,\u201d Palacio said.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Hernandez, the owner of the Canarsie home, testified Wednesday about hearing the shot outside his place, then seeing a car that was blocking his driveway peel off. Moments later, he saw Rivera bleeding to death, the puffs of his breath weakening in the cold winter air.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stopped breathing after a couple of minutes,\u201d Hernandez said. An ambulance crew arrived, and \u201cthey tried to revive him, but he was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soto\u2019s defense lawyer, Lisa Scolari, admitted he was a member of the gang, but said he denied committing the murder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a number of things that we cannot deny. Jason Soto is a Crip,\u201d she told the jury in her opening statement. \u201cJason Soto has been a bad guy. He has done some bad things\u2026 There\u2019s no doubt they were a plague on that neighborhood. But that information is background.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said no forensic evidence tied Soto to the crime, that prosecutors didn\u2019t have his fingerprints, DNA or the murder weapon, and had no witnesses or video of Soto committing the murder.<\/p>\n

\"OnOn Feb. 22, 2015, Jason Soto allegedly lured Shakim Rivera out of an East New York apartment to a spot on Bayview Place in Canarsie, and shot him in the back of the head. (Ken Murray \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnger, pain, outrage, they\u2019re powerful feelings,\u201d Scolari said. \u201cBut feelings are not evidence of murder. Feelings change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have long known Soto was their prime suspect in Rivera\u2019s murder, calling him a \u201ccold-blooded assassin who has vowed to kill again\u201d as they tried to get him sent away for 40 years on federal gun charges in 2018. After an evidentiary hearing in January 2018, Brooklyn Federal Judge Leo Glasser found that prosecutors presented \u201cclear and convincing\u201d proof that Soto committed the killing, though sentenced him to just five years.<\/p>\n

Soto completed that sentence in December 2023, and was locked up in Pennsylvania for several months after that for violating his parole. He was indicted for Rivera\u2019s murder in December 2024.<\/p>\n

While locked up between 2016 and 2018, he wrote an \u201cautobiographical manuscript\u201d that referenced Rivera. \u201cThis comrade of ours was no longer a friend of ours, and that envy made him a monster,\u201d he wrote, according to court filings.<\/p>\n

He allegedly wrote of Graham, \u201cI failed him as a brother, but would never fail him again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Brooklyn Crips member executed his gang\u2019s leader to avenge the death of his best friend, and to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,135869,11827,100,99,135871,135868,30638,9,24,63,135870],"class_list":["post-367283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-crips","tag-brooklyn-federal-court","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-cypress-gangsta-crips","tag-jason-soto","tag-murder-trial","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-revenge-killing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367283","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=367283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}