A Staten Island gang leader named “Tragedy” couldn’t stop bragging about the two murders he committed for the Bloods — and a federal jury needed less than a day to find him guilty of the slayings.
John Pena Jr., AKA “Tragedy,” leader of the Gorilla Stone Mafia, faces a mandatory life sentence after a Brooklyn Federal Court jury on Tuesday found him guilty of all six counts against him, including racketeering and murder in aid of racketeering.
Pena, 32, boasted repeatedly about the two murders he committed personally in 2021 — even after he was locked up in federal jail, evidence at the Brooklyn Federal Court trial showed.
One of those repeated boasts? That he was “Drama free,” referring to the killing of rival Mark “Drama” Bajandas.
He rapped about both killings in a song called “Revenge is Glorious,” wrote about them in handwritten lyrics found in a jail cell, and bragged about them to a fellow inmate at the MDC Brooklyn jail.
Prosecutors said Pena did the two killings to regain clout after the rival “Bugatti” gang lay waste to his ranks with a string of slayings.
He gunned down Gorilla Stone Mafia turncoat Bajandas, 26, outside the Stapleton Houses on Hill St. on March 10, 2021 at a candlelight memorial for a fallen gang member, pumping more than 10 bullets into the victim despite assurances he’d be safe to attend the vigil.
Pena then emerged from hiding on June 22, 2021 to kill romantic rival Francisco Gonzalez, 23, as the doomed Original Stacks gang member slept next to Pena’s ex-girlfriend in her bed, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said three of Pena’s fellow Gorilla Stone Mafia were killed between December 2019 and April 2020, including one of Pena’s relatives, and the gang believed a rival crew, “Bugatti,” was behind the bloodshed.
After Bajandas and another Gorilla Stone Mafia member switched sides, Pena had to spill blood to stave off a mutiny and stay on top, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Roddin said in his closing argument.
“So he needed to perform. As the godfather, he needed to show that he deserved his power. He needed to kill,” Roddin said.
The other turncoat, Jordan Taylor, took the stand at the Pena’s trial.
Another witness, jailhouse informant Tysheen Cooper told the jury last Wednesday, how Pena confided in him and offered up details of the murders.
“I waited for him to step off the camera… and then I spliffed him and walked off like I was John Gotti,” Pena bragged, according to Cooper — who’s cooperating with authorities after pleading guilty to his role in a 2016 murder.
That was apparently a reference to Bajandas’ killing, prosecutors said, and Cooper further explained, “He used to say little — like catchphrases and stuff like that…. One of them was, like, since the day of whatever day the crime happened, his life has been drama free.”
As for the second murder, Pena bragged to Cooper about how he broke into Gonzalez’s house, he testified. “He used to say things like, ‘Yo, he must have been off the lean (cough syrup) because he never woke up. I gave him mad time to wake up. I stood over him and I watched him sleep and then I shot him and he never woke up by — by the time he woke up, he was dead asleep,’” Cooper recounted.
Pena’s “Revenge is Glorious” rap song — which hit YouTube in 2023, two years after his arrest — also referred to doing both killings, prosecutors said. His lyrics about Gonzalez included the line, “left his brains on them sheets, man what was he thinkin’?”
The jury began deliberations in the roughly two-week trial Monday afternoon, and by about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, they had their verdict.
Bajandas’ mother, Nydia Lasanta, wept after she heard the word “guilty” repeated in each of the six counts. Surrounded by family members outside the courtroom, she expressed relief about the verdict.
“My son was a loving kid, and we miss him so much. He was stolen from us,” she said.
Pena’s sentencing is set for Feb. 20.
“As the evidence proved, Pena was consumed by seeking revenge against rivals and maintaining his leadership position in the Gorilla Stone Mafia gang by any means necessary,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Tuesday.“Killing a man as he slept in bed and shooting another man with a dozen bullets are shocking examples of Pena’s ruthlessness.”
Pena’s lawyer, Sam Gregory, declined comment Tuesday.
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