The brother of one-time Cuomo aide Carey Gabay confronted the men tried for his kin’s 2015 killing with personal childhood photographs during their sentencing Wednesday, saying “I want you to see what you took.”
“Here we are when he was 15, and I was 13 – we grew up in the projects together, just like you,” Gabay’s younger brother, Aaron McNaughton, told Micah Alleyne, Kenny Bazile, and Stanley Elianor as he held up the photos. “But we made a different choice.”
“He taught me to never make excuses, to never blame your environment for your behavior,” McNaughton angrily told the trio, who are admitted Folk Nation members, saying that even gang members from their housing project were proud to see his brother succeed. “But you’ve done nothing but carnage, crime and murder. You murdered the best part of you. And that was Carey.”
Gabay, who grew up in the Bronx and would go on to become the first black student body president at Harvard, was fatally shot in the head when he and McNaughton were caught in the middle of a gang war that broke out during J’Ouvert, in September, 2015.
The 43-year-old died nine days later, after being taken off life support.
Brooklyn Supreme Court judge Vincent DelGiudice issued consecutive sentences, slapping Alleyne with up to 30 years, Bazile with up to 25 years, and Elianor with up to seven years behind bars.
lleyne and Bazile were convicted in July for second-degree manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon, while Elianor only found guilty of reckless endangerment.
Their co-defendant, an 8-Trey Crip named Keith Luncheon, was acquitted outright.
“My mother worked hard to keep us safe, but my brother fell victim to the very strange streets she tried to protect us from,” McNaughton said at sentencing. “It’s ironic that one of my brother’s favorite celebrations brought about his untimely death.”
McNaughton also mentioned his new nephew — Carey Wyatt Gabay — who was born in June after doctors managed to harvest viable sperm from the lawyer before he died.
“I will raise my son as a single mother,” widow Trenelle Gabay told the court, her voice breaking. “Not by choice, but by the reckless actions that have taken my husband away.”
“I’m grateful to God and science that a dream Carey and I wanted didn’t die with him,” she said. “My husband would have been the perfect father.”
“Now my son will know his father only through stories.”
Gabay’s sisters and his mother also spoke, asking DelGiudice to give the trio the maximum possible sentence.
Alleyne, Bazile, and Elianor declined to address the court, while their lawyers asked the judge not to impose consecutive sentences — as prosecutor Emily Dean requested.
DelGiudice called Gabay “a true role model,” before handing down his decision. “He’s gone. But why? Because of senseless gang violence. The defendants who stand before me represent the antithesis of Mr. Gabay.”
“They’re a scourge on society,” the jurist spat.
Though the trio were originally charged with murder, they were convicted of the lesser charges by a jury following a 4-month trial featuring over 50 witnesses.
Prosecutors relied heavily on testimony of Hoodstarz gang member Tyshawn Crawford, who flipped in exchange for a deal that netted him 14 years behind bars.
Crawford is due in court Friday for sentencing.
“In Brooklyn, we will continue to fight against senseless gang violence that in this instance led to the tragic death of Carey Gabay, an innocent, bright young man with a loving family and a promising future,” Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez said in a statement following the hearing.
“I hope that Mr. Gabay’s family is able to take some solace in the measure of justice delivered with today’s sentences.”