Old School Gang 'Brick Squad' Busted After Brooklyn Killings: DA

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — An old-school Brooklyn street gang that directed murders from prison and bragged about the money they were making even as people overdosed on their drugs was busted this week, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Nine Brooklyn men and one Staten Island man who were charged in a 48-count indictment for their involvement in the "Brick Squad" gang, a years-long crime empire that sold drugs as far away as Maine and was responsible for at least two Brooklyn murders.

The Brick Squad used a strict hierarchy, closely-adhered-to rules and violent crimes to keep its members in line and bring in as much money as possible, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said at a press conference.

"In the past we've had different types of cases with loose street gangs made up of men who grew up on the same block or the same building and run together and commit crimes together — this is a little bit different," Gonzalez said. "This is an old-style, '90s gang...They have rules, they have an oath, they have a constitution and they have coded language."

Brick Squad, a subset of the Bloods gang, brought in money by selling marijuana, cocaine and heroin, some of it mixed with deadly fentanyl, throughout Brooklyn and as far away as Binghamton, N.Y. and Maine, where Gonzalez said they knew they'd make more money.

They can even be heard in conversations recorded by investigators bragging about how much money was brought in selling heroin that had caused at least three overdoses in Maine, prosecutors said.

"That s--- is duffeling three people," member Lee Kennedy says, using the code "duffel" to talk about those who died. "That was genius, bro."

Gonzalez said Kennedy and Stephan Khadu, who he was talking to in the recorded conversation, decided that as scary as fentanyl-laced heroin is, there was "too much money" to stop selling it.

"It is just the complete disregard for human life," Gonzalez said. "That’s what this gang is about — they’re about violence and making money."

At least twice in their years-long reign, Brick Squad leaders ordered rivals or members of their own gang to be killed from prison, Gonzalez said.

Among the indictments were seven shootings, including two previously unsolved Brooklyn murders, the 2017 killing of John Fernandez in Ocean Hill and the 2018 slaying of Claudell Gary in Bed-Stuy.

Fernandez had been a member of Brick Squad, but leaders believed he was not bringing in enough money and might be working with police, so they had Jahsuan Washington shoot him, prosecutors said. Two of the other defendants, Khadu and Christopher Garcia, were also charged in his murder for directing the killing from jail.

Gary's murder, prosecutors said, was the end of a year-long feud between his family and Brick Squad members. Quazeer Farmer, at the direction of Khadu and another gang leader Markel Pender, shot and killed Gary on Hart Street in April 2018. Members also stole a safe with $3,000 in it from the Gary family, prosecutors said.

High-ranking Brick Squad members also had members who were not in jail put profits of the drug sales or burglaries into their prison commissary accounts, prosecutors said.

Howard Smith, known as the "The Godfather" of the gang, had more than $25,000 in his commissary account in September. Pender, who ran the day-to-day operations of the gang, had more than $12,000 in his account, Gonzalez said.

Other members arrested included Andrew Marquis, of Staten Island, and Jerome Noble and Dayshawn Speed, both from Brooklyn.

Gonzalez said that six of the members were arraigned Thursday and the rest will be arraigned Friday or Monday. Those already arraigned were either remanded without bail or held on a $500,000 bail, he said.

The five members who were charged in the murders could face 25 years to life in prison and the others face up to 25 years, prosecutors said.