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Jurors in lower Manhattan last week found Kasheen “Kash” Samuels, 34, guilty of the felony murder of Andrew Torres, as well as other robbery-related charges, following a nine-day trial, said Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Torres, 21, was pronounced dead a little over a half-hour after police responded to the Loop Inn Motel on June 21, 2017.
The target of the robbery, a 24-year-old man also from the Bronx, was taken to University Hospital in Newark in critical condition.
He’d apparently boasted on social media that he had a large sum of money, drawing several people to his room – including Torres and two women who’d joined them in a Jacuzzi, authorities said at the time.
The motel, off the Route 1&9 loop in Avenel, offers couples the opportunity to “let your fantasies take hold” during a “sensual getaway,” with fireplaces, whirlpools, heart-shaped swimming pool and more.
Two men came to the door that night, authorities said. Torres answered it and was immediately shot, they said.
Samuels “assisted in planning the robbery, provided a gun that was used during the robbery, and obtained jewelry stolen from one of the victims,” Strauss said Monday.
He and others also conspired to “steal drug-trafficking proceeds near an autobody shop in the Bronx” and “to distribute large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine in the Bronx and Burlington, VT,” the U.S. attorney added.
“Kasheen Samuels planned and carried out dangerous gunpoint robberies for years,” Strauss said. “He spread addiction in our communities by selling crack cocaine and heroin. A young man was shot and killed during one of his robberies, and Kasheen Samuels now stands convicted of that murder by a unanimous jury. “
Strauss praised what she called “outstanding work” by agents under her command, while thanking the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, New York State, the NYPD, Yonkers police and police in Burlington.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jessica K. Fender, Mollie Bracewell, Christopher Brumwell and Jason Swergold, along with paralegal specialist Christopher Sykes, secured the conviction, she said.
A sentencing date wasn’t immediately announced.
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