CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (1010 WINS) -- A 35-year-old member of the Latin King and Queen Nation gang was sentenced to over 18 years in prison on Friday for the 2005 murder of a Long Island college basketball star.
Jaime Rivera fatally shot Tafare Berryman, a C.W. Post College basketball player, at a bar in North Long Beach, California after he mistakenly identified him as a participant in a fight that broke out earlier that night.
“Tafare Berryman, a college student, athlete and beloved member of the Brooklyn and Long Island communities, was senselessly murdered, depriving him of the bright future he worked so hard to achieve and leaving his bereaved family shattered,” stated U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “This murder, which occurred 17 years ago, was never forgotten.”
On April 2, 2005, a fight broke out between some C.W. Post students and gang members at the L.A. Mansion Bar and Nightclub.
As Berryman and a friend left the bar, one of the gang members threw a bottle at his friend’s head. The students drove away, but when his friend pulled over to tend a cut from the bottle Rivera pulled up alongside them and fatally shot Berryman.
Rivera was under the false impression that Berryman and his friend had been involved in the fight.
The gang member pleaded guilty to the shooting in March 2019.
A federal judge at a Central Islip courthouse sentenced him to 220 months in prison for murdering Tafare.
Related
Related
