Last April, Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, met a group of men at the Ritz Bar & Lounge, a nautical-themed gay dance club in Hell’s Kitchen, two blocks from Times Square. Less than two hours after leaving with them, Ramirez was dead from a drug overdose after his new acquaintances abandoned him in the backseat of a cab. Investigators believe they used payment apps like Zelle to steal about $20,000 from his bank accounts before leaving him.
A month later, John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant, was found dead in a Manhattan townhouse after meeting the same group of men at the Q, a multi-story queer nightclub around the corner from the Ritz. According to his mother, Linda Clary, Umberger had been with a group of friends until he decided to head to the Q alone to catch a late-night DJ show.
Umberger never got into the final cab that he ordered and was instead hustled into the backseat of another car by the suspects. The accused killers allegedly stole about $20,000 from Umberger’s bank accounts, and filmed on their phones as he overdosed.
“It speaks to their depravity,” Clary tells the Guardian. “And it is concerning how many other groups may be still doing it.”
These attacks are part of a wave of drug-assisted thefts that has left at least seven clubgoers dead in New York City, with at least 43 known druggings since September 2021, in at least two separate patterns.
Police were initially dismissive of the incidents and blamed the victims. “NYPD presented to me that John went to a club, got robbed, and was so depressed that he came home and did drugs,” says Clary, who immediately doubted the story. “If that had happened to John, that would not have been his response on any level.”
Now police acknowledge those killings were not isolated incidents. This month they announced the arrests of four suspects who, according to prosecutor filings at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, conspired to “approach intoxicated individuals upon exiting a bar or nightclub, engage them in conversation, and offer and administer dangerous and illicit substances to them for the purpose of causing their incapacitation”. A fifth person charged in the deaths remains at large.
That indictment comes months after the arrest of an unconnected suspect in December 2022, charged with drug-assisted thefts that killed two clubgoers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In March 2023, police also determined that the mysterious death of a rising New York fashion designer, Katie Gallagher, in July had been due to drug-assisted theft, though no suspects have been arrested. And in January, a New York City law student, Jordan Taylor, went missing after visiting the Q, in a case that remains unsolved.
Clary worries that there are even more drugging attacks that aren’t getting attention. “I’m convinced that there are significantly more cases because I think out of embarrassment, shame or fear, victims have not come forward,” she says.
‘Shady outsiders in gay spaces’
The NYPD chief of detectives, James Essig, has stressed that these drugging attacks aren’t just aimed at queer people: “This is based solely on monetary gain,” he said last year. But some members of the LGBTQ+ community say they feel particularly vulnerable, especially when hate crimes are on the rise.
That includes Arthur Bramhandtam, a Hell’s Kitchen resident and swimwear designer who frequents New York’s queer venues. He can name at least four different friends who had been robbed of their phones or wallets, with three of the incidents in the last two months alone. “It’s scary,” he says. He doesn’t believe the perpetrators belong to the community: “It’s shady outsiders that come into these gay spaces.”
Miguel Tavares, a New Yorker who has joined Hell’s Kitchen parties for more than a decade, thinks the thieves could be exploiting the things that make gay nightlife so appealing: “The truth is, I do let my guard down when I come out to these places, because you’re yearning for connection. And I think for homosexuals especially, we want to commingle, want to let others into our friend groups.”
For queer people, the attacks pose a dilemma: how do you stay vigilant in intimate venues that are meant to allow you to drop your defenses?
Marybec Griffin, a Rutgers University assistant professor who researches LGBTQ+ health, says the drugging attacks are just the “newest twist” in the legacy of violence targeting queer people – ”something that has been happening since the beginning of time”. But these attacks are particularly insidious “because the perpetrators are preying on people in places where they’re supposed to be safe”.
Carl Smith-Hudson, a Brooklyn resident who has been going out to Hell’s Kitchen with his friends for years, says he often sees strangers approach queer people in the area with offers of drugs. “They target these areas, like, ‘Oh, I’m not gay, but listen, I have this for you, I have that.’”
Bramhandtam says an atmosphere where drugs are commonplace allows perpetrators to blend in: “Maybe someone’s hitting on you, or you’re hitting on them – it’s not unusual for someone to just offer you a bump.” He thinks thieves might also target people using more dissociative drugs, like GHB, ketamine and molly. “Everyone’s in a pretty good mood. They’re not taking things that make you aggressive,” he says.
In this environment, it’s easier for attackers to slip substances into people’s drinks, or give someone a substance that’s been combined with unknown drugs, says William Eggleston, an assistant professor and toxicologist at the State University of New York, Binghamton. “These drugs are often mixed, and most of the time, what you think you’re buying is not necessarily what you’re getting.”
Medical examiners found drugs in the victims’ bodies that included fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol and p-fluorofentanyl. The latter is a synthetic opioid that’s often mixed with fentanyl, and just about as deadly, according to Eggleston. It doesn’t take much of either drug to slow someone’s breathing or make them unresponsive, and “it’s important to note that the effects of drugs like fentanyl are increased with the presence of alcohol”, he says.
Skeptical cops
Local government is aware of the problem. In response to the drugging attacks, New York City’s office for the prevention of hate crimes has partnered with a non-profit called the Anti-Violence Project to monitor incidents in LGBTQ+ nightlife areas, promote safety practices and hand out fentanyl testing strips.
Audacia Ray, AVP’s director of community organizing and public advocacy, says venues can improve safety by training more eyes on their space. Even better if the staff are part of the queer community: “One of the bartenders we met during our canvassing was an elder gay man working for a private security company. He knew what he was looking for. That was really helpful to have someone who had knowledge of queer culture to be in that space.”
Clubgoers who spoke to the Guardian said that some of the smaller, queer-owned venues removed from tourist areas felt safer than some of the larger bars and clubs in Manhattan. Many also agreed that the two venues that Martinez and Umberger visited before they died – the Ritz and the Q – felt like places where there was a higher risk of being harassed or robbed.
At a press conference after last year’s deaths, the Ritz’s owner, Tom Greco, who is straight, said he would implement “heightened bag checks” and advised patrons to “be aware of who’s with you and who’s coming and going”. But last week, a bouncer outside the Ritz told the Guardian he had “never heard of” the deadly drugging attacks in the area, and he said that the Ritz’s security manager wasn’t on the premises. Greco didn’t respond to messages requesting comment.
The Q’s owners also couldn’t be reached for comment. Last month, the club abruptly shut down following a lawsuit filed last June by co-founder Frank Sharp against his partners Bob Fluet and Allan Pikus. While Sharp’s complaint didn’t mention Umberger’s death or drug-assisted thefts, Sharp accused his partners of turning the club into a toxic and racist work environment, and ordering security to turn a blind eye to drugs like GHB.
The only person associated with the club who spoke to the Guardian was Nikki, a former security manager at the Q who declined to give her last name. She told the Guardian she never allowed illegal substances to be brought inside: “Something like that happens, you’re getting the fuck out of my club.” As for the deadly drug-assisted thefts: “It’s fucked up. But it just happened. There was a lot going on, so it happened.”
Even when venues try to stop attacks, they aren’t always taken seriously by police. The New York state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, whose district includes Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea – another queer nightlife district – says he heard from a Chelsea gay bar owner who “literally pulled out a potential victim from a van” after someone tried to kidnap one of his patrons. But law enforcement was skeptical when the owner reported it, the lawmaker says. “I think there’s immediately a sense of suspicion around men who frequent gay bars and nightclubs.”
Clary says she’s also heard from other drug attack victims who tried reporting their attacks to police. But the victims, who were also gay, “did not get the care and concern from NYPD that everyone should get. They were like, ‘You did this, that’s on you. Sorry, buddy.’”
In an emailed statement, an NYPD spokesperson said it “works to establish patterns and motives in all robberies” and “there are no robberies or kidnappings on file” for the Chelsea bar last year. “The NYPD encourages all crime victims to come forward to police and report any incidents so that we can investigate and hold any perpetrators responsible,” the spokesperson added.
‘Stick with your friends’
To make going out safer, it’s crucial not to blame victims for what happened, says Griffin, of Rutgers University. “Shame is the enemy of open and honest communication.”
A better approach is a harm reduction model, which prioritizes giving people the tools and information to make informed choices about substances. “There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to test your substances to make sure you know what you’re consuming,” she says.
Eggleston, the toxicologist, advises keeping your drink in your hand, and not accepting drinks from strangers. He recommends going to the emergency room if you think you’ve been drugged – “they can do tests and keep a close eye on you.” If you suspect someone you’re with is overdosing, call 911 and give them naloxone, also known as Narcan, a medication that can stop overdoses. “If you’re right, it’ll help them start breathing again. If you’re wrong, it’s not going to hurt them.”
Bargoers should develop a safety plan with people they trust. “Have a plan with a check-in person about when you plan to go home, and turn on location sharing on your phone,” Ray, the community organizer, says.
Ray also advises turning off face-unlocking on your phone. “It’s something that folks have used when someone was incapacitated, to be able to get into their phone, turn off location sharing, and pull money out of their bank accounts.”
Hoylman-Sigal says he’s contacted Zelle to ask for stronger fraud protection measures. “I think the ease of defrauding customers who use their platform may have contributed to these horrific attacks,” the state senator says. (A spokesperson for Zelle said it “continues to have conversations” with officials and financial institutions “in how we can all partner to protect consumers”.)
But for now the best protection for many queer nightlifers remains each other. “Don’t take drugs from strangers that you don’t know, and stick with your friends, right?” says Bramhandtam, who also carries fentanyl test strips on nights out. “That’s all you really got in these types of situations.”
Later this month, Bramhandtam plans to attend a Brooklyn queer party that was hit by a mass theft incident in February – so he expects he’ll be looking out for suspicious outsiders. “We’ve already created so many enclaves pretty far away from main parts of society,” he says. “But they just keep finding us.”
