Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has been linked to two murder plots in an obscure racketeering case involving a drug gang in his old neighborhood.
Witnesses in the trial have testified that he was the person who funded one scheme. In the other, Tyson himself was considered a potential target, but was spared for religious reasons.
Tyson has denied knowing anything about the mayhem surrounding a ruthless drug gang at the center of the case. But his name was mentioned several times during recent testimony at the trial of an alleged getaway driver in two slayings.
PHOTO: AP
At closing arguments on Monday, Assistant US Attorney Sean Haran reminded jurors the “evidence was that Mike Tyson put up US$50,000 to kill” two men.
Defense attorney Richard Levitt cautioned that the witness who described the Tyson murder-for-hire plot was “unquestionably a liar.”
Tyson issued a statement calling the accounts “totally untrue.”
He said he was “tired of people throwing my name around.”
Deliberations at the federal trial in Brooklyn were expected to begin yesterday.
Tyson’s name emerged during an investigation of the Cash Money Brothers, a gang led by brothers Damion “World” Hardy and Myron “Wise” Hardy. The gang, which lifted its name from the film New Jack City, had turned a Bedford-Stuyvesant housing project into a violent drug market, prosecutors said.
Federal authorities in 2004 charged several men in a racketeering indictment with multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, drug dealing and gun possession. Some later pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the government against Abubakr Raheem, the reputed driver, and World, who faces the death penalty at separate trial later this year.
Raheem has denied the charges. He admits he knew the killers, but as a Muslim, didn’t approve of them.
“Was he at peace with them? Absolutely not,” his attorney said on Monday.
Prosecutors scoffed at Raheem’s claims that he sought to steer the men toward Islam.
“He’s sort of the spiritual adviser to perhaps the most dangerous group of gangsters in the city,” Haran said.
Authorities have said Wise’s killing in 1999 sparked a bloodbath in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York City’s borough of Brooklyn. Among those killed: Tyson’s friend and bodyguard, Darryl “Homicide” Baum.
At trial, a turncoat gangster testified after learning Baum was gunned down in 2000 that Tyson put out a US$50,000 contract on World. Asked why, the cooperator said the boxer was “close friends with Homicide.”
A crew associate also took the stand and described how, after word of the bounty spread, he overheard the gangsters saying Tyson needed to be “rubbed out.”
Later, the same witness said, he and Raheem were with a group that spotted a Range Rover they believed was carrying Tyson. One of the men wanted to kill the boxer but the idea was “squashed right there” because “Mike Tyson was a Muslim,” the witness said.
Tyson interrupted his training in a 2000 comeback bout in Scotland to attend Baum’s funeral in Brooklyn. He won his fight against Lou Savarese in 38 seconds and dedicated the victory to the bodyguard.
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Bayern Munich on Sunday were crowned German champions for the 34th time, giving striker Harry Kane his first major trophy, after second-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen drew 2-2 at SC Freiburg. Bayern’s 3-3 draw at RB Leipzig on Saturday, when the Bavarians came from two goals down to take the lead before conceding a stoppage-time equalizer, meant defending Bundesliga champions Leverkusen needed to win at Freiburg to delay the title party. Leverkusen were two goals down before scoring twice in the final 10 minutes, but Xabi Alonso’s side could not find a third, as Bayern reclaimed the title at the first attempt after
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
RSS