A convicted drug trafficker has been found guilty of moonlighting as a paid assassin for a Manhattan real estate developer who ordered his protege-turned-rival killed.
A federal jury in Brooklyn found Antony Abreu, 36, guilty of murder-for-hire charges in the 2019 killing of Xin “Chris” Gu, who was gunned down outside a Queens karaoke bar at the order of his former boss, Qing Ming “Allen” Yu.
Gu, 31, worked for Yu’s multimillion-dollar apartment renovation firm, Amaco, but he quit on Aug. 18, 2018, taking several clients to his new company, including one worth more than $1 million.
Enraged, Yu tasked his nephew to assemble a kill team and get revenge. Abreu was recruited by accomplice Zhe Zhang to pull the trigger.
About 2:35 a.m. on Feb. 12, 2019, Abreu donned a pair of purplish-blue surgical gloves and executed Gu as he waited for an Uber at the Grand Slam KTV karaoke bar in Flushing. Abreu’s payment for the hit was a high-priced Richard Mille wristwatch worth more than $100,000, prosecutors said.
Yu and Zhang were found guilty in a separate trial in October.
Abreu, who’s already serving a 24-year prison sentence for a federal cocaine distribution conviction in Mississippi, betrayed no emotion before the jury as it announced the verdict.
His mother, who sat in the courtroom flanked by three other family members, sighed and slumped back, then broke into quiet sobs.
Abreu faces mandatory life in prison when he’s sentenced Sept. 12.
“With today’s conviction of Abreu, a cold-blooded triggerman who executed a young man in exchange for an expensive wristwatch, this office has held all the conspirators responsible for this murder plot driven by greed and revenge,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Tuesday. “The victim was marked for death simply because he was pursuing the American Dream by starting his own company.”
The verdict came after Abreu testified in his own defense in his week-and-a-half long trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Abreu told jurors he drove to Long Island to pick up a friend and then made a few stops after that to pick up large sums of cash from his marijuana dealing business.
Police at the scene where Xin “Chris” Gu was shot multiple times on 131st St. near Avery Ave. in Flushing, Queens, on Feb. 12, 2019. (Vic Nicastro for New York Daily News)Assistant U.S. Attorney Devon Lash tore into that defense on cross-examination, pointing out that his friend didn’t take the stand to back up his alibi.
“Ya’ll was scaring him with threats. That’s the reason why he didn’t want to testify,” Abreu insisted.
Susan Kellman, one of Abreu’s lawyers, immediately announced she’d file a motion to set aside the verdict.
“We’ll keep fighting,” she said outside the courtroom, contending that the government didn’t establish that Abreu ever entered into an agreement to be paid for the crime.
The trial proceeded with a few hiccups, including when one of the jurors, Vanity Fair writer Delia Cai, was booted early on because she tweeted about the “hot FBI agent” on the case.
On Monday, the jurors sent a note stating they weren’t close to reaching a verdict, leading Judge Carol Bagley Amon to send them back to keep deliberating.
Two more jurors were later dismissed from the case. On Tuesday, a fourth juror was let go because of travel obligations, leading to the last of the four alternates to be seated less than two hours before the verdict was reached.
