Queens, New York District Attorney Melinda Katz on Monday announced that Shakim Allen and Dreshaun Smith were convicted of murder and other charges for shooting two Guyanese brothers, killing one, during a Richmond Hill robbery in January 2017.
District Attorney Katz said: “One of the victims, who was visiting from Guyana, lost his life trying to protect his younger brother. This family has experienced tremendous grief and I hope this conviction provides them a measure of closure. The defendants face long sentences for their callous actions.”
Allen, 29, of Merrick Avenue, and Smith, 29, of 160th Street, in Jamaica, Queens, were convicted by a jury in Queens Supreme Court of murder in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and tampering with physical evidence, a release from Katz’s office said. Allen was additionally convicted of criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree, while Smith was additionally convicted of arson in the third degree.
The defendants face possible sentences of more than 50 years to life in prison by Queens Supreme Court Justice Ira Mar-gulis on April 25, the release said.
According to the charges:
– On January 2, 2017, at approximately 3:22 a.m. near the corner of 124 th Street and Liberty Avenue, defendant Allen got out of a two-door Mercedes-Benz driven by defendant Smith and pointed a gun
at 24-year-old Sonny Kalisaran. Kalisaran attempted to run away. The victim’s brother, 31-year-old Rocky Kalisaran of Guy-ana who was waiting nearby, saw the confrontation and ran to his brother’s
aid. Allen then pursued both men as they fled.
– Allen caught up to the brothers and wrestled with the older victim over his gun, which discharged.
The younger victim shouted for help as he used a keychain pen knife to stab and slash Allen several times in the face. At that time, defendant Smith drove up to them and got out of the car with a raised
gun and fired multiple times at the two victims. He struck the younger Kalisaran brother in the arm and back as he ran and the older victim in the chest, lower torso, and leg. At some point, Allen picked
up the younger victim’s cell phone and wallet from the ground, then both defendants got back into the car and drove off.
– Cell site evidence presented at trial showed that the defendants fled the crime scene and drove to Cohen Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park. Video surveillance showed defendant Allen
discarding Sonny Kalisaran’s phone and wallet in a sewer prior to entering the hospital, where Allen was treated for his stab and slash wounds.
– Later that day, at approximately 6:45 p.m., the fire department responded to a vehicle fire in a rear parking lot on 186th Street and 104th Avenue in Jamaica. When police arrived, they identified the
burnt vehicle to be a Mercedes-Benz coupe registered to Smith’s girlfriend. Video surveillance footage showed Smith purchasing gasoline and setting the car on fire shortly before it was discovered.
– After the robbery, both victims were taken to a nearby hospital. The older victim, Rocky Kalisaran, died later that day of his gunshot injuries.
The District Attorney thanked the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team as well as the Nassau County Police Department for their assistance with this case.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Selkowe, of the District Attor-ney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case, with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Emily Santoro of the Felony Trials Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney John Kosinski, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief,
and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Shawn Clark.
Gold chain
According to a New York Daily News report on the fatal shooting, the gunman was after a gold chain that the injured brother was wearing.
An inconsolable Anita Kalisaran, 48, the dead man’s mother, explained that he had arrived in New York two days earlier from Guyana to attend a funeral.
“They killed my son. They killed my son for a gold chain. They shot and killed him. He come here for the funeral and (he’s) dead now,” the distraught woman was quoted as saying in the January 2nd, 2017 report.
The woman told the media that she last saw her son alive on the Sunday night. He had asked her if she would mind him going out with his younger brother for a couple of hours.
“[Sunday] night, he come to ask me if he can go out, and I said, ‘Yes, go’, because he [doesn’t normally] go nowhere,” she was quoted as saying.
Daily News also spoke with one of Sunny’s coworkers who said that the brothers spent the evening at The Under-ground Lounge, a club on 123rd Street near Liberty Ave, about a block away from where they were shot.
They were walking toward their parked grey Infiniti when the robber approached them and demanded their valuables at gunpoint.
The brothers refused — and struggled for the gun, the news outlet quoted sources as saying. The gunman shot them, then an accomplice pulled up in a dark sedan and they fled.
Five blocks from the murder scene, at 103rd Ave and Lefferts Blvd, the robbers crashed into another car, before fleeing onto the Belt Parkway, sources said. No one was injured in the crash.
Paramedics rushed the injured men to Jamaica Hospital, where Ricky died of a chest wound.
The co-worker told Daily News that he believed the target was Sunny because he was wearing a flashy gold chain.
“He’s told me he used to go to different clubs, people (tried) to rob him of his chain, his jewellery,” the co-worker, who asked to be identified only as Martin, 36, said.
Ann-Marie George, 48, Ricky’s aunt, the news report said held a hysterical Anita in the living room of her Cypress Hills home, and described how her sister-in-law was not only grieving the death of her son, but both her mother, who died the week before, and father, who died of cancer four months earlier.
Ricky’s grieving mother described her son as humble, loving, and hard-working who worked full-time in Guyana in construction and as a cab driver. Daily News stated that he would send much of his earnings to his mother in New York each month.
“He helped me so much,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Since he was 14 years old. The boy worked so hard.”
Lena George, 58, another of Ricky’s aunts, described him as a good person. “Always happy. Quiet. He’d just sit down, look at you and smile,” she was quoted as saying.
