A Manhattan businessman who masterminded a paid assassination of his former protégé will spend the rest of his life in federal prison.
Qing Ming “Allen” Yu, 56, and accomplice Zhe Zhang, 36, were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after a Brooklyn Federal Court jury found them guilty last October in the Queens assassination of Xin “Chris” Gu in 2019 .
Yu led Amaco, a multimillion-dollar Manhattan company that renovated apartments in New York City.
Gu, 31, worked as his project manager and trusted subordinate but started his own company, poaching several employees and clients, including a $1 million renovation project with 83 apartments.
Stung by betrayal, Yu turned to his cousin to assemble a killing squad and asked his relative to involve his street-savvy weed supplier, Zhang.
Zhang in turn recruited another drug dealer, Antony Abreu, to pull the trigger.
They planned the murder for February 12, 2019, the night Gu hosted a New Year’s party for his new company. Abreu executed him while waiting for an Uber at the Grand Slam KTV karaoke bar in Vlissingen, where the afterparty took place. Zhang served as the getaway driver.
Video surveillance captured the shooting: the killer walks past Gu and then quickly turns around, pulls out a gun and attacks him from behind, then lifts the gun and points it at the back of Gu’s head.
“Allen Yu wanted to kill Xin Gu because he had started a rival company and Zhang agreed to carry out the killing without hesitation,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Wednesday. “Driven by greed and revenge, they hired a hitman to commit a brutal murder of a young man, traumatizing both the victim’s family and the community of Vlissingen.”
Peace added: “The defendants will spend the rest of their lives behind prison walls because of this premeditated murder. I hope today’s sentences bring some closure to Xin Gu’s family.”
Yu’s cousin, You You, testified against his uncle at the trial, and at a separate trial for Abreu in April.
Yu and Zhang’s lawyers tried to pin the entire plot on the nephew, arguing that he hated the victim for surpassing him in his uncle’s business, but to no avail.
The cousin was paid $150,000 for planning the murder, while Zhang, who was initially promised Yu’s real estate development company, was paid $30,000, according to the FBI.
You spent $100,000 of his cut to pay off a debt to another weed supplier, and bought a nice BMW and an exotic pet – a $5,000 finger monkey.
Abreu’s payment for the hit was an expensive Richard Mille wristwatch worth more than $100,000, prosecutors said.
He was also found guilty of murder for hire. Abreu, who is already serving a 24-year prison sentence, also faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced on September 24.
