A pair of Mount Vernon men caught a break after getting nabbed on serious gun charges in the Bronx, getting referred to a “gun diversion” program instead of facing serious time behind bars.
But now they’re locked up on murder charges in a vicious execution-style shooting, The Post has learned.
“The DAs are playing with fire — and we have one guy executed,” one frustrated law enforcement source said Sunday. “It’s a black hole. No one can figure out what’s gong on in between [court] appearances.
“All they talk about is getting rid of cases,” the source added. “Citywide we are seeing this. Now all the boroughs have caught on to this diversion fraud.”
Amari Oneal and Ali Mohammed, both 21, ran afoul of the NYPD on Aug. 1, 2023, when they were pulled over by the cops near a Bronx housing project and nabbed with a cache of loaded guns.
According to court records, Oneal was behind the wheel of a white 2003 Volkswagen with dark tinted windows and New Jersey license plates when cops spotted the car in Concourse Village.
In plain view in the car were an illegal .22-caliber Beretta handgun with a 13-round magazine and a black 9 mm Glock pistol with a 22-round magazine, a criminal complaint said.
Oneal, Mohammed and a third man, Amari Staggers, were hit with illegal gun charges by cops.
But once in court the cases bounced around for months before Mohammed and Oneal were both offered spots in jail-alternative programs designed for suspects caught with illegal weapons in an attempt to get them on the straight and narrow and to dodge prison time.
Under deals worked out by prosecutors, Oneal pleaded guilty to attempted gun possession on June 27 and was assigned to the Bronx Osborne Gun Accountability and Prevention Program, while Mohammed got a similar deal on Sept. 12 and was assigned to a similar program run by the Fortune Society.
In both cases, the two suspects faced two years in prison if they didn’t complete the program.
They didn’t.
On Jan. 6, the two were part of a crew that allegedly ambushed David Smith in the Westchester County city of New Rochelle and shot him dead — firing six shots into the victim after he lay wounded on the ground, according to criminal complaints filed by prosecutors.
Mohammed, Oneal and a third man, Marquis Williamson were nabbed near 49 Rhoda Quash Lane in New Rochelle after the shooting shortly after 10:30 a.m., according to complaints filed by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
Two other men — Tommy Guest and Anthony Webster — were hit with first-degree robbery charges.
In a bizarre twist, Smith himself had some trouble with the law and faced felony fraud charges in an unrelated Connecticut case for allegedly scamming DoorDash drivers out of nearly $1 million as part of an elaborate two-year-old nationwide scam, according to records.
Smith had been due in court in Stamford just two days after he was gunned down.
In a statement last week, a spokesperson for the Bronx DA’s office said the gun diversion program has been successful in the past at diverting lower-risk gun suspects from further crimes.
“It is an outrage and a tragedy that Oneal and Mohammed allegedly murdered a young man just as they were beginning rehabilitative programs in Bronx County,” the rep said in a statement.
“We have had 100 people successfully complete these programs, which provide an opportunity to avoid a criminal record and receive the tools to be productive, law-abiding citizens,” the rep said. “When we enacted these programs we understood there would be risk, but we are combating gun violence from all angles and with preventive approaches in addition to prosecution.”
In a statement after the fatal shooting, New Rochelle police said Smith was killed after a “personal dispute” over money, but it is unclear if the dispute was related to the DoorDash scam.
Police said the victim and his allegedly killers “were acquainted” with each other — with most arrested near the scene, a third after he walked into the hospital with a wounded hand and another two days later.
The Connecticut State Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on Smith’s fraud cause on their turf last week. But the Stamford Advocate said the 22-year-old was charged with defrauding the app’s drivers by claiming cards used for purchases were listed as stolen.
He would allegedly coax the drivers into providing new card information and bill those accounts, defrauding them out of more than $730,000 over more than two years, the outlet reported.
But the Big Apple law enforcement sources said his violent death could’ve been avoided if his allegedly killers hadn’t gotten a break on their 2023 gun cases.
“Two perps, two guns — that’s a highly presentable case,” the source said. “Prosecutors are now either solution-driven or excuse-driven. This is more of the latter.”
