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Queens prosecutors on Tuesday unsealed a massive 151-count indictment against 33 rival gangbangers whose running street feud terrorized innocent New Yorkers and left at least two dead, including a promising 14-year-old hoopster gunned down in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
At least a half-dozen people were wounded in the bloody yearslong beef between the Money World crew and two rival gangs, police and prosecutors said.
Among the victims of the senseless violence was high school freshman Aamir Griffin, who was shot dead in 2019 on a South Jamaica basketball court.
“The streets of South Jamaica, Queens, are a much safer place as a result of the events leading up to this takedown,” NYPD Deputy Inspector Jerry O’Sullivan, commanding officer of the 113th Precinct, said at a joint press conference with prosecutors.
“Amir wasn’t playing basketball by himself,” he said. “We’ve had two cops assigned to that basketball court also. And for gang members to feel comfortable enough to bring a gun to the vicinity of a basketball court where cops are, and to shoot and hit an innocent person — that is completely unacceptable.”
The feud between the Money World gang and the two other Queens crews — Local Trap Stars and Never Forget Loyalty — stemmed from the April 16, 2019 attack on a Trap Stars member by two rival gangsters, who slashed and beat the victim.
On Oct. 26, 2019, Money World member Sean Brown allegedly spotted Griffin playing basketball outside NYCHA’s Baisley Park Houses and mistook him for a rival gangster — killing the teen with three shots from a .380-caliber handgun.
Hundreds gathered for the promising young athlete’s funeral in Jamaica the following week, with the Benjamin N. Cardozo High School freshman’s body arriving at the Greater Allen AME Cathedral in a white horse-drawn carriage.
It would be nearly two years before his alleged killer was nabbed.
“He took a lot from me,” the slain teen’s mom, Shanequa Griffin, told The Post after Brown’s arrest in August 2021. “He broke my heart.
“I just want him to know that he is going to get what he deserves,” she said of the accused killer. “It’s still fresh for me. Every day is still like it just happened like it was just yesterday.”
What followed the teen’s death was six more retaliatory attacks between the gangs, including the New Year’s Eve 2020 shooting death of 26-year-old Sean Vance as he sat in the driver’s seat of a parked BMW on Sutphin Boulevard, prosecutors said.
The alleged shooter, Money World member Tymirth Bey-Foster, who planned the hit with three other gang members, wrongfully believed Vance was involved in an attack on their fellow gangbanger earlier in the day, prosecutors said.
Bey-Foster is among the gang members charged with second-degree murder, with Jokai Coy, Justin Harvey, and Joel Lewis charged as co-conspirators in the slaying.
Also charged with murder is Sean Brown, who is accused of pulling the trigger in Griffin’s mistaken-identify killing in 2019, authorities said.
All 33 defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, along with other charges, prosecutors said. As of Tuesday, 15 have been arraigned on the indictment, three are awaiting arraignment and eight were already jailed in other cases.
Three others are awaiting extradition from North Carolina and New Jersey. Four of the suspects remain on the loose, according to prosecutors.
“We have seen law-abiding New Yorkers peacefully going about their business being killed by mindless gang violence,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
“At the heart of the indictment is a blood feud between Southeast Queens street gangs to establish their territorial dominance,” Katz said. “Money World is on one side and local Trap Stars and Never Forget Royalty are on the other.”
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