By Sadef Ali Kully
One suspected member of the SNOW gang in southeast Queens was convicted last month after a 10-week trial for conspiracy to murder, and was sentenced Feb. 9 to serve 8 to 25 years in prison, the Queens District Attorney announced.
Trevor Lucas, 23, from Jamaica, was sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Robert Kohm to spend consecutively 8 to 25 years in prison, in addition to the two-year prison term he is currently serving for attempted criminal possession of a weapon. The three other defendants convicted with Lucas are slated to be sentenced later this month.
Lucas was convicted Jan. 20, of second-degree conspiracy following the jury trial before Kohm. Lucas is an alleged member of the so-called SNOW, Loyalty Over Everything, Young Bosses and Mobbed Out Bosses street gangs that operated in Rosedale, Laurelton and Rochdale Village neighborhoods.
“The defendant has shown that he has no regard for human life. The conviction and this lengthy prison sentence strikes at the heart of a unified and criminally active group of young people who threatened the lives and safety of innocent bystanders by conspiring to kill two other purported members of a rival street gang. This plot to kill was in retaliation for the shooting death of a SNOW gang member. Today’s sentence — the maximum allowable by law — is more than warranted,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
According to the trial testimony, Lucas and the three other defendants operated within the confines of the 113th and 105th precincts – the area comprises the Rosedale, Laurelton and Rochdale Village neighborhoods. Between March 30 and April 1, 2014, the defendants conspired to kill two purported members of a rival gang in retaliation for the March 2014 shooting death of a SNOW gang member, the Queens DA said.
In addition to their plot, the DA said the purported gang members gathered in Montbellier Park in Springfield Gardens on April 1, 2014, for unlawful purposes and when confronted by police they ran away but were quickly apprehended.
Brown said the long-term investigation — which was spearheaded by the NYPD Queens Gang Squad, the 113th Precinct’s Strategic Enforcement Team and Queens DA Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau – utilized various investigative techniques, including the monitoring of conversations spread out on more than 1.1 million Facebook pages belonging to gang members.
Reach Reporter Sadef Ali Kully by e-mail at skull
