Drug and firearm investigation nets 15 alleged gang members in Hollis
/By Jonathan Sperling
The Queens District Attorney’s Office announced charges against 15 reputed gang members for offenses ranging from drug sales to attempted murder following a multi-agency investigation that spanned nearly two years.
Several alleged members of the HNY gang — named after Hollis’ Henderson Avenue — were charged with attempted murder for a failed hit on a rival gang member near the Baisley Park Houses in 2018, while others have been indicted for the sale of cocaine and firearms.
Thirteen of the defendants are in custody, while police are still searching for two others, according to Acting Queens District Attorney John Ryan, who added that investigators used court-authorized wiretaps to learn where the suspected gang members allegedly stashed the weapons, which prosecutors say were used in shootings.
“The defendants are accused of peddling death by trafficking in the sale of illegal drugs and firearms. Today’s arrests, targeting the gang’s alleged leaders, will put a significant dent in the drug trafficking and drug-related violence plaguing the area,” Ryan said in a statement.
The main HNY defendants were identified as Dwayne Bratton, Jerrel Henderson and Hanif Campbell who are charged, along with three others, in a seven-count indictment. The defendants allegedly plotted to kill a rival gang member near the Baisley Park Houses on May 6, 2018.
Henderson, 18, shot at the rival but failed to hit him, prosecutors say.
In a separate indictment, Wallace Stevenson, 57, and Darron Swinnie, 27, are charged with being
father-and-son drug dealers who sold cocaine throughout Hollis. On Jan. 31, 2019, they sold more than 200 grams of cocaine, prosecutors say.
According to a witness intimidation indictment, an unidentified 23-year-old man was attacked during a heated dispute in a McDonald’s parking lot on Springfield Boulevard in September 2018 by two of the defendants: Isaac Wheeler and Khoran Simmons, both 16 at the time of the incident. The victim suffered bruises to his ribs and eye, as well as a cut to the cheek that required stitches.
Eight months later, on May 31, 2019, Wheeler and two others stabbed the victim’s brother in an effort to intimidate the previous victim into dropping the criminal charges, prosecutors say. The stabbing victim suffered a back wound that required surgery.
