User:Tragic Baboon/List of federal death penalty prosecutions in New York

Fed DP made impossible in 1972, but reinstated in 1988 and expanded in 1994 via the Federal Death Penalty Act. (Will put more here)

Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions in New York
	Name	Year of Sentencing	Principal charges	Judge
1	Thomas Pitera	1992	Racketeering, drug distribution, murder	Hon. Reena Raggi, EDNY
	Thomas Pitera, a member of the Bonanno crime family, was convicted June 25, 1992 on charges that included six murders as well as a variety of racketeering and drug-related counts. Because two of the murders were in furtherance of a drug-related conspiracy and occurred in 1989, after the enactment of the federal death penalty statute, Pitera was eligible for the death penalty, which the United States Attorney sought. The evidence against Pitera was overwhelming, and the jury convicted him of the murders and most of the other counts after six days of deliberations. During the penalty phase of the trial, despite evidence that Pitera tortured the 1989 victims before killing them, the jury declined the death penalty. The conviction was affirmed on appeal by the Second Circuit.
2	Walter Diaz, Tyrone Walker	1996	Murder, drug conspiracy	Hon. Thomas McAvoy, NDNY
	Walter Diaz and Tyrone Walker were implicated in several drug-induced violent robberies during February 1993. Four of the unconnected crimes involved gun violence, and three people were killed. Because the February 18, 1993 murder of Michael Monsour in Cragsmoor, New York was connected with a drug distribution conspiracy, the pair were indicted on only that murder by the United States Attorney, who sought the death penalty. Both were convicted of the death penalty-eligible crime on January 17, 1996. The jury was unable to reach unanimity on the death penalty and defaulted to life imprisonment for both felons. While eleven members of the jury voted life for Diaz, Walker was spared by a single holdout. The convictions were affirmed on appeal to the Second Circuit.
3	Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa	1999	Murder in aid of racketeering and for the purpose of obstructing justice, fraud, tax evasion	Hon. Edward Korman, EDNY
	Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa did not fit the profile of the ordinary death penalty-eligible murder defendant. A Sikh immigrant from India, Dhinsa started out as a car wash attendant and eventually became the millionaire owner of the "City Gas" gas station empire, which numbered 51 stations in the New York City area. Dhinsa was in fact systematically defrauding his customers, and would eventually order as many as seven murders, three of which were carried out between 1995 and 1997, in an attempt to cover up his crimes. One of the men killed was cooperating with the FBI on a fraud investigation into Dhinsa's business. Dhinsa was ultimately charged by the U.S. Attorney with two of the murders, among lesser charges. Dhinsa hired celebrated criminal defense lawyer Gerald Shargel. Nevertheless, after two and a half days of deliberations, on March 2, 1999, the jury convicted Dhinsa on many of the counts, including both murders. It took the jury just one hour to spare Dhinsa the death penalty one week later.
4	Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed	2001	238-count indictment relating to the 1998 United States embassy bombings	Hon. Leonard Sand, SDNY
	Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed were tried together with their Al-Qaeda co-conspirators Mohammed Saddiq Odeh and Wadih El-Hage, who were not facing the death penalty.
5	Emile Dixon	2003	Two murders, obstructions of justice, drug charges	Hon. Raymond Dearie, EDNY
	Emile Dixon was the hit-man of a drug gang called the "Patio Crew", which controlled crack cocaine sales in Flatbush, Brooklyn as well as a larger drug distribution network. Dixon was indicted by federal prosecutors on charges that included two drug-related murders in 1992 and 2000. The latter victim, Robert Thompson, was a police informant. Due to concerns over the reliability of the witnesses, the U.S. Attorney for the district recommended that the federal government not pursue the death penalty but was overruled by the recently appointed Attorney General John Ashcroft, who directed the prosecutors to ask for capital punishment in a widely criticized move. On December 9, 2003, the jury convicted Dixon on 12 charges, including both murders, after a trial in which most of the evidence was provided by witnesses the defense characterized as self-interested liars and criminals. At the penalty phase, the defendant shocked the judge and prosecutors by directing his lawyers not to present any witnesses as to his upbringing, mental state, etc., limiting them to cross-examining government witnesses. Judge Dearie was troubled by this turn of events and tried to convince Dixon to reverse his decision, but ultimately conceded that Dixon "ha[d] an absolute right to sink or swim under his own flag." Regardless of Dixon's strategy, however, the jury announced on December 22, 2003, that it could not reach unanimity on imposing the death sentence after only six hours of deliberations. Ironically, six of the jurors indicated that one of the factors in sparing Dixon's life was his "concern for the privacy and dignity of his family" in refusing to allow the details of his upbringing to be aired in open court.
6	Matthew Lavin, Tebiah Tucker	2004
	He was a bad bad man!
7	Alan Quinones, Diego Rodriguez	2004		Hon. Jed Rakoff, SDNY
	He was a bad bad man!
8	Elijah Williams, Michael Williams	2005		Hon. Naomi Buchwald, SDNY
	He was a bad bad man!
9	Martin Aguilar	2007
	He was a bad bad man!
10	Ronell Wilson	2007
	He was a bad bad man!