By: Richard L. Smith
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger reported today that three members and associates of a drug trafficking enterprise who were also members of a neighborhood street gang in Essex County were sentenced today to prison for their respective roles in multiple gang-related murders, including the murder of a federal informant.
Thomas Zimmerman, 28, was sentenced to 37 years in prison, Tyquan Daniels, 27, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, and Ali Hill, 30, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
All of the defendants were also sentenced to five years of supervised release.
All of the defendants are East Orange residents, and all were sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez in Newark federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
In February 2018, the leader of a Newark, New Jersey-based drug trafficking enterprise operating in East Orange, Newark, New York City, Maryland and California, among other states, found out that one of his conspirators in the drug enterprise was cooperating with federal law enforcement by providing information against the drug enterprise.
The gang leader ordered members of the Brick City Brims Bloods (“BCB”) in East Orange, of which all three defendants were active members, to kill the informant.
On February 3, 2018, outside the informant’s residence in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Zimmerman and other gang members shot and killed an innocent bystander, believing the bystander was the informant.
Hill conspired with Zimmerman and later Daniels in the plot to kill the informant.
Realizing they killed the wrong person, the defendants planned another attempt to murder the informant.
On March 12, 2018, in Bloomfield, Zimmerman and other BCB members approached the informant and fired multiple shots at him at close range, killing him.
Daniels aided the murder conspiracy by helping to hide the murder weapon after the fact.
Daniels was also sentenced for the separate murder of a rival gang member committed in furtherance of the activities of the BCB, specifically to protect the BCB’s drug territory.
Daniels shot and killed a rival gang member in Orange, New Jersey on May 13, 2018.
Hill was sentenced after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy for his role in the planning of the murder of the informant in March 2018.
U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of special agent in charge James E. Dennehy in Newark; the Newark Police Department, under the direction of Public Safety Director Fritz G. Fragé; the Essex County Prosecutors Office; the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, East Orange PD; Montclair PD, and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Intelligence and Investigative Division, under the direction of Secretary Robert Green with the investigation leading to sentencings.