By WESTON LOVING
Two New York City men were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for hire as well as a litany of other charges on Wednesday, as criminal trials resumed in Manhattan Federal Court after a hiatus of around six months due to the pandemic.
After a five-day trial Vance Collins of the Bronx and Ramon Ramirez of Staten Island were found guilty by a Manhattan federal jury of conspiracy to commit murder for hire as well as actual murder for hire though the intended victim was not killed, which the law still prescribes.
The trial occurred as the district entered Phase Three of its Coronavirus Phased Re-Entry Plan.
Collins, also known as “Big AK”, and Ramirez, also known as “Obendy” faced sentences of up to 10 years in a federal prison. “Vance Collins and Ramon Ramirez tried to arrange for a murder…the defendants stand convicted and will face punishment for their crimes,” said acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Audrey Strauss.
Collins was convicted of an additional count of possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony. Collins had previously been convicted for forcible sodomy and related offenses in 1997. Shortly after his 1997 conviction he also faced an attempted murder charge while he was awaiting trial for his sodomy charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office disclosed.
According to evidence from their 2019 indictment, Ramirez learned in 2017 that his wife was allegedly having an affair with another man. Ramirez then turned to Collins, allegedly a high-ranking gang member, to hire somebody to kill who the U.S. Attorney’s Office refers to as the “Victim”. Collins turned to two other members of his gang to take care of Ramirez’s situation.
In October of 2018, the plot was unfolding as planned before one of the hitmen entered the home of the victim and discovered the presence of another person, compromising the situation. The hitman was arrested shortly afterward. Following his arrest, a task force composed of members from the NYPD, FBI, ATF, New York State Police, the New York State Probation Office, the Mount Vernon Police Department, and Westchester County Police Department arrested Ramirez in Staten Island. Collins was arrested by the same task force in the Bronx.
“…the FBI has a number of investigative resources and federal laws we can tap into to help us prevent these potential crimes. But the fact that the plan allegedly concocted by Collins and Ramirez was ultimately unsuccessful shouldn’t overshadow the gravity of this situation – the intent was the same, regardless of the outcome,” said the Assistant Director for the FBI’s New York Field Office, William F. Sweeney Jr. in the original unsealing of the indictment in June of 2019. Sweeney is also quoted as saying that murder-for-hire crimes are much more common than most people think
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