The last thing his murder victims would hear was the revving of a motorcycle.
Accused assassin-for-hire Fausto Gonzales went on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday for six murders, each allegedly committed on one of his powerful Honda Fireblade racing bikes.
Already serving life without parole for a drug-related contract hit in Connecticut, Gonzales is the stuff of movies – or nightmares. From behind the jet-black visor of his helmet, Gonzales would aim and calmly empty his 9mm handgun, prosecutors say.
In half the murders, he wouldn’t even bother to dismount, firing into a moving car on Broadway and West 121st Street in one 1997 hit, and firing backward from the back of an accelerating motorcycle on Riverside Drive in 1996, amazingly still managing to strike his victim’s heart and lungs, prosecutors say.
“On the day each of these young men was murdered, as they passed away, each had a vision of a motorcycle helmet-wearing assassin – not the vision of a loved one, stroking their hair – as he pumped round after round of bullets into their bullet-riddled bodies,” prosecutor Jon Veiga told jurors in opening statements.
“That killing machine is the defendant Fausto Gonzales – a thrill-seeking, stone-cold, heartless professional killer.”
Gonzales was so callous, he shot one of his victims, in May 1997, simply to steal his motorcycle, prosecutors say. Chef and restaurateur Alexander Pierce, 38, ran four SoHo restaurants and had just the day before rewarded himself with a shiny, cherry-red Honda 900 Fireblade worth $15,000. “This bike was basically a rocket on wheels,” the prosecutor said.
Pierce was taking his new bike for a spin at Houston and Chrystie streets in the Lower East Side, when he had the misfortune of passing Gonzales, who was on the back of his buddy’s bike in a posse of some six other motorcycling car thieves and thugs.
Gonzales wanted that bike, “Just like Eve was tempted by that shiny apple,” the prosecutor said. He dismounted. He walked over to Pierce and demanded the bike. When Pierce moved too slowly, Gonzales allegedly opened fire.
“Fausto shot him in the neck, and as the victim’s bike fell over, Fausto kicks him off of it,” one law-enforcement source said. “Fausto then picks up the bike, and they’re gone. The whole thing literally took 10 seconds.”
But it wasn’t enough to leave the still-bleeding victim, Veiga said. The body was in his way, he said, so Gonzales rode over it.
“This guy is so sociopathic, he thinks this is all one big laugh,” one law-enforcement source said.
Gonzales ruled the roads back in the late ’90s, running with a deadly, motorcycle-riding pack of drug dealers and professional car thieves, prosecutors say. Their two loves were larceny and high-end “[Kawasaki] Ninja-style” bikes – racing them and stealing them.
“They loved Hondas, Suzukis, Yamahas,” one source said. “They called them ‘Rice Rockets’ – that was their term, not ours.”
If convicted, Gonzales can’t face more time than the life without parole he’s already serving, but risks being moved out of his current “Club Fed” and into a tougher New York state facility. His lawyers argue that the entire case rests on the word of three cooperating witnesses who are nothing more than murderous liars.