The leader of a Brooklyn street gang was convicted on Thursday, June 6, for the murder of a government witness during a territorial dispute in the East New York projects, authorities reported.
Maliek Miller, the 30-year-old leader of the Ninedee Gang from the Louis H. Pink Houses, was found guilty of ordering and helping plan the July 2020 killing of 33-year-old Shatavia Walls. Walls had testified against one of Miller’s junior members who shot her in 2017, according to federal prosecutors.
Miller faced more than half a dozen charges related to her death, including racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, murder in aid of racketeering, as well as weapons and drug offenses.
Following a four-week trial in Brooklyn federal court, a jury found him guilty on all counts, as stated by the US Attorney’s Office. Miller now faces a mandatory life sentence.
“Today’s verdict is momentous because it holds Miller accountable for orchestrating a cowardly plot to kill a woman who bravely stood up to his Ninedee Gang, and it upholds the rule of law for the residents of the Pink Houses who just want to go about their lives and raise their children without the plague of violence and danger inflicted on them by ruthless criminals like the defendant,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in the statement.
“The verdict ensures that Miller will spend the rest of his life in prison, which I hope provides some measure of solace to the family of Shatavia Walls.”
Walls’ fatal shooting occurred on the night of July 7, 2020, and was meticulously planned and executed by the Ninedee Gang, just three days after Walls confronted the gang members about setting off illegal fireworks in the Linden Boulevard housing complex.
During the altercation, Miller reportedly called Walls a “snitch” and discharged his firearm into the air, according to prosecutors.
Shortly after this incident, Miller and other members of the Ninedee Gang began plotting Walls’ murder. In 2019, Walls had testified in a federal case in Brooklyn, revealing that a member of the Loopy Gang, which had close ties to the Ninedees, had shot her two years earlier.
During this time, Walls faced pressure as gang members posted flyers throughout the complex labeling her as a rat.
According to court documents, three days after the confrontation on Independence Day, Ninedee Gang members Quintin Green, 23, and Joe Santana, 20, set a trap. They waited in the Pink Houses from the afternoon into the early evening of July 7, 2020, for an opportunity to shoot Walls.
Walls finally exited a building in the complex around 9:25 p.m., and it was then that Green began shooting, prosecutors said. Unfortunately, Green missed his target and struck an innocent bystander instead.
Green continued firing as Walls ran, ultimately catching up to her behind one of the Linden Boulevard buildings and fatally shooting her, according to federal prosecutors.
Following the shooting, Ninedee Gang member Shakur Bey, 27, disposed of the shooters’ clothing by burning it in an incinerator, as reported by the US Attorney’s Office.
Additionally, gang member Kevin Wint, 30, rented a hotel room near John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens to provide a hiding place for the killers.
Walls survived for ten days before succumbing to her injuries.
Green, Santana, and Bey have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the murder and are awaiting sentencing.
Wint, who pleaded guilty in March 2023, has already been sentenced to more than nine years in prison for his role, according to federal authorities.
“There is no place for such egregious violence in our city, especially when used in retaliation to incite fear,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge James Smith said in a statement.
“May today’s conviction offer some closure to Shatavia Walls’s family and serve as a deterrent to gangs who use violent tactics in furtherance of their criminal activity.”
