A 37-year-old Brooklyn Crips member went on trial this week in federal court, accused of gunning down his own gang's leader in a 2015 Canarsie shooting that prosecutors say was pure revenge. Jason Soto allegedly lured Shakim Rivera out of an East New York apartment before shooting him in the back of the head on Bayview Place, then fled the scene by car with an associate.
Prosecutors say Soto, who went by the nickname “Twin,” targeted Rivera, known as “Stacks,” because he blamed him for ordering the killing of Demetrius Graham, a 23-year-old fellow Cypress Gangsta Crips member Soto viewed as a little brother, according to New York Daily News. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andres Palacio told jurors that Soto executed Rivera to avenge Graham's death and to stop a brewing civil war within the gang, which authorities say dealt drugs in and around the Cypress Hills Houses.
A Friend Killed in His Sleep
Graham, who went by “Duke,” was shot three days before Rivera while sleeping on his girlfriend's bed at a home on Bradford Street in East New York, prosecutors say. Rivera allegedly ordered two loyalists to break into the home and shoot him, apparently resenting Graham for keeping drug proceeds from another group. On the day of Graham's killing, Soto allegedly told his incarcerated twin brother, Jonathan Soto, who was locked up on Rikers Island, that he planned to kill Rivera, according to Yahoo News.
Soto allegedly spoke with his twin and two other people before carrying out the shooting three days later. After Rivera's killing, control of the gang passed to Team Duke, the faction aligned with Graham and of which Soto was a member, per the Daily News account. While incarcerated between 2016 and 2018, Soto reportedly wrote an autobiographical manuscript in which he said he had failed Graham as a brother but would not fail him again.
Neighbor Describes the Scene
Vladimir Hernandez, who owned the Canarsie home outside which Rivera was shot, testified that he heard a shot and saw a car leave his driveway before he found Rivera bleeding. An ambulance crew attempted to revive Rivera, but he died after being shot, according to the seed account of courtroom testimony.
Soto's defense lawyer, Lisa Scolari, said her client denied committing the murder and argued that prosecutors lack fingerprints, DNA, the murder weapon, witnesses or video tying Soto to the killing. Prosecutors have called Soto their prime suspect and described him in court as a cold-blooded assassin who vowed to kill again.
A Decade-Long Path to Trial
The case against Soto has a long history. At a January 2018 evidentiary hearing, Judge Leo Glasser found that prosecutors had presented clear and convincing proof that Soto committed Rivera's killing, though that finding came in a separate proceeding and does not determine the outcome of the current trial. Around that same time, Soto was sentenced to five years on federal gun charges.
The Justice Department's Eastern District of New York has said Soto, also known as “Twin,” was previously sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment after a conviction for selling a firearm to a convicted felon, unlawfully possessing a firearm and drug trafficking, according to a U.S. Department of Justice announcement. Soto completed that sentence in December 2023 but remained incarcerated in Pennsylvania for several months afterward for a parole violation before his release in May 2024.
He was indicted on the Rivera murder charge in December 2024 and arrested on that new federal indictment, per the Daily News. A separate Justice Department release described a two-count indictment charging Soto with Rivera's 2015 murder. The underlying federal case is docketed as USA v. Soto in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, case 1:16-cr-00298, according to records from the U.S. Government Publishing Office. Soto pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.
