Earlier today, Damion Hardy, also known as “World,” and Aaron Granton, also known as “E-Bay,” were each sentenced to six terms of life imprisonment following their April 29, 2015 conviction after trial on charges of murder in-aid-of racketeering and related offenses. The sentence was imposed by United States District Judge Frederic Block.

The sentences were announced by Kelly T. Currie, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Diego G. Rodriguez, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI); Raymond R. Parmer Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), New York; and William J. Bratton, Commissioner, New York City Police Department. “Gang members and would-be gang members are on notice that we will never cease in our efforts to bring murderous criminals to justice and to make communities like Lafayette Gardens safe for its law abiding residents,” stated Acting United States Attorney Currie. “I thank the FBI, HSI, and the New York City Police Department for their extraordinarily hard work and total dedication to bringing these most violent gang members to justice.” From 1991 until August 2004, Hardy was the leader of a criminal enterprise known as the “Cash Money Brothers” (CMB) based in the Lafayette Gardens houses in Brooklyn, New York. Granton was a member of CMB and one of its top enforcers. From the time the crack-cocaine epidemic began in the late 1980s, Lafayette Gardens was a central and lucrative hub for the distribution of cocaine base. At that time, the young men who would later form CMB acted as street dealers under the direction of the senior drug dealers who controlled Lafayette Gardens. In approximately 1991, after CMB was formed under the leadership of the defendant Hardy and his brother, Myron Hardy, also known as “Wise,” the CMB ousted the senior dealers and seized control of the Lafayette Gardens crack trade for themselves.

CMB maintained control of Lafayette Gardens through acts of violence that included near-daily gun battles with rival organizations and numerous murders. For example, in 1998, Hardy ordered a junior gang member to shoot and kill Michael Colon because Hardy believed Colon disrespected and humiliated him at a roller skating rink. In 1999, while Hardy was incarcerated, his brother Myron was shot and killed in Lafayette Gardens. Hardy and other CMB members believed that a rival drug dealer named Ivery “Peanut” Davis and other members of Davis’s drug organization were responsible for the murder. While Hardy lay wounded in the hospital, Damion Hardy, from his prison cell, directed his gang members to exact revenge and ordered CMB members to murder Darryl Baum, James Hamilton, Tyrone Baum, and Ivery Davis—each was murdered by Granton. Davis’s killing also resulted in the death of an innocent bystander, Johan Camitz.

Through his murderous work with CMB, Granton earned a reputation as an effective and ruthless killer. As a result, he was recruited in 2001 by a separate gang, the “Supreme Team,” to kill Troy Singleton—who was then shot multiple times in the back and head as he left a nightclub in Queens, New York.

The government’s case is being prosecuted jointly by the Office’s International Narcotics & Money Laundering Section and Organized Crime & Gangs Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Matthew Amatruda, Soumya Dayananda, and Rena T. Paul are handling the prosecution.

The Defendants:

DAMION HARDY Age: 40 Brooklyn, NY

AARON GRANTON Age: 40 Brooklyn, NY