Still no arrests. No one talking. Not surprised.

Unless people talk I doubt they find the assassin.

Its a very weird case. from what the actor is saying these guys just decided to turn on them out of the blue after one or two deals. Since he's cooperating you would think they would have indicted these guys for drug trafficking at least. Also theres a shady music promoter involved from queens that the victim was in touch with so there maybe a music industry angle too.

I agree with the 'weird factor' here Scorcese. Sounds like the first deal went well. Second deal they were slow returning the money. Third deal they decided to keep the product, not send the money then attempt to take these guys out. Maybe to protect themselves from any future repercussions. Very strange to me as well. Wouldn't mind someone putting the pieces to this puzzle together and finding out the real story eventually.

It seems that the LA guys weren't really that heavy with backup. Just guys that had a connect to cocaine. Im guessing the queens gang felt like they could just rob these guys. They may have been paid by other LA based traffickers to do it.

That could be true too about LA guys contracting it out.

Alleged drug trafficker charged in 2012 murder of Los Angeles dad on Midtown Manhattan street
BY SHAYNA JACOBS, ROCCO PARASCANDOLA, THOMAS TRACY, GRAHAM RAYMAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, December 23, 2015, 2:32 PM A A

JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Cops cuffed a 37-year-old man in connection with the 2012 murder of a Los Angeles dad in a mob-style hit in Midtown, officials said.

Detectives arrested Lloyd McKenzie on murder and drug charges after he was taken into custody in Queens on Tuesday morning. Five other codefendants have been charged.

McKenzie allegedly set up the hit and drove the getaway car in the slaying of 31-year-old Brandon Woodard in broad daylight on W. 58th St. near Seventh Ave. on Dec. 10, 2012, cops said. The shooter remains on the loose.

BRONX DAD ACCUSED OF KILLING BABY GIVES CHILLING CONFESSION

“Three years ago, Brandon Woodard was murdered on a Midtown sidewalk in broad daylight,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said. “This brazen shooting, stemming from a major interstate drug conspiracy, shocked and frightened many at the time.”

The shooter, who remains on the loose, walked up behind Woodard, pictured, and shot him in the back of the neck, killing him.
DELGADO CARLOS,, FREELANCENYDN

Jason Russo, McKenzie’s lawyer, said his client was approached by investigators three years ago because the rental car was leased by someone who knew him.

“He was fully cooperative then, and I think this case is just hearsay and speculation,” Russo said. “There’s nothing concrete that ties him to the case. Frankly I’m surprised that after all these years they would bring this case.”

As for the five codefendants, he said, “Neither I nor he know any of them.”

McKenzie was arrested without incident in Queens while visiting his parole officer, officials said. He was on parole for a short stint in prison on a drug conviction in Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors allege he was deeply involved in a drug trafficking conspiracy with Woodard, Woodard’s alleged partner-in-crime Quran Pender and others.

Shortly after the murder, cops believed Woodard was killed because drug money earmarked for dealers in the city was confiscated while he was in California — and he wasn’t able to replace the cash, believed to be tens of thousands of dollars.

McKenzie’s bust takes place as an associate of Woodard’s — allegedly a fellow drug courier — was apprehended on an drug charge and was awaiting his next court date at the Manhattan Detention Complex, officials said.

McKenzie and Woodard were engaged in a sophisticated cross-country drug trafficking operation that involved several other people, according to court papers. An unnamed coconspirators would ship cocaine to a Queens address.

McKenzie used banks and check cashing businesses in the city and New Jersey to deposit money for his co-conspirators, and repeatedly changed the Queens and Brooklyn addresses where the drugs would be shipped, prosecutors said.



Woodard would fly to New York City, check in to various hotels, pick up the cash for the drug shipments and then return to Los Angeles, court papers say.

They communicated largely via text messages written in code, the complaint said. Addresses were “labels.” The cocaine was called “shipper release.”

An unnamed codefendant used the Woodland Hills, Calif., offices of the insurance giant, Blue Shield of California, to prepare UPS shipping labels

In August 2012, for example, the unnamed codefendant mailed one kilo of cocaine to Queens, the complaint said. Woodard flew to New York and checked in at the Marcel at Gramercy Hotel and then met McKenzie to pick up the cash for the drugs, prosecutors say.

According to the complaint, on Dec. 12, 2012, McKenzie drove a Lincoln MKZ sedan to Manhattan and parked in front of the St. Thomas Choir School on W. 58th St. The shooter was in the passenger seat, armed with a 9mm pistol.

The shooter got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk. McKenzie allegedly told another co-conspirator to contact Woodard and arrange for them to meet near a piano store at W. 58th St. and 7th Ave.

The reason for the meeting was that McKenzie was going to pay Woodard for five kilograms of cocaine that he had already delivered, prosecutors said.

The shooter walked up behind Woodard and shot him in the back of the neck, killing him. The shooter then got back into the sedan and McKenzie drove away, officials said.

An unnamed codefendant was arrested on Dec. 19, 2012, in Los Angeles in possession of two kilograms.

Honestly I never thought they would catch anyone. They will need more than the car though.

They haven't got the gunman yet either. It could be one of those things where they don't want him to get bail so they've prematurely charged him with murder.

Second suspect busted in 2013 Midtown shooting of law student in broad daylight


A second suspect was finally busted for his role in a bicoastal cocaine ring that culminated in a broad-daylight execution-style shooting of a California law student as he walked in Midtown in 2013.

Michael Wisdom, a k a “The Wiz,” was charged with conspiracy and criminal possession on Dec. 29 in Manhattan Supreme Court.

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Accused hitmen in 2012 mob-style slaying of Brandon Woodard await extradition to New York
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA, JOHN ANNESE, SHAYNA JACOBS NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, March 15, 2016, 7:57 PM A A A
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Three men are awaiting extradition to New York in connection to a 2012 daylight mob-style hit in Midtown.

Getaway driver Lloyd Mckenzie was the first to be arrested in the death of 31-year-old Brandon Woodard, who was gunned down on W. 58th St. near Seventh Ave. in December 2012.

Since then, others are in custody — but the triggerman remains at large.


Lloyd Mckenzie, the suspected getaway driver in the slaying of Brandon Woodward, was arrested and stands trial in the death of Brandon Woodward.
His father, Lature Irvin Sr., 43, also indicted, is serving a life sentence in Texas for a sex offense.

Another man, Darryl Mason, is in custody in California, doing a 12-year incarceration stint on drug charges. Efforts are being made to bring him to Manhattan.

The men are charged in the same indictment which has been filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

A Murder Trial in Which the Gunman Is Unknown
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.MAY 11, 2017


The scene on West 58th Street in Manhattan, where Brandon L. Woodard was shot and killed on Dec. 10, 2012. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times
It has been four and a half years since a California law student was killed in broad daylight near Columbus Circle in Manhattan, and next week a Queens man goes on trial on charges he orchestrated the killing.

But the trial, which is expected to last six weeks, is unlikely to answer a question that has vexed the police for years: Who was the hooded gunman filmed as he calmly walked up behind the California man, Brandon L. Woodard, on that rainy December afternoon, raised a nickel-plated pistol and fired a bullet into his neck?

“At the end of the trial you may not know who the shooter was,” the lead prosecutor, Christopher Prevost, told prospective jurors during jury selection earlier this week. “There will be other questions not answered. Where did the gun come from? Where did it go?”

Lloyd T. McKenzie, 39, is charged with murder in the death of Mr. Woodard, and prosecutors say they will prove he drove the killer to the scene in a rented car, waited on the curb and whisked the gunman away afterward, melding into the traffic and escaping to Queens. Opening arguments are expected early next week.



The brazen slaying of Mr. Woodard, 31, drew national attention, as detectives on two coasts scrambled to find out why a law school student and club promoter from Los Angeles would be gunned down gangland-style on West 58th Street at 2 in the afternoon.

Surveillance video showed the killer waiting for nearly half an hour before ambushing Mr. Woodard, who was walking head down, absorbed in his cellphone, just before he was shot.

The trial promises to shed light on a bicoastal drug-smuggling operation that brought Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Woodard together. Mr. Woodard was killed as he was trying to collect $161,000 from Mr. McKenzie for shipments of cocaine already delivered, prosecutors said.

The testimony is also expected to explain how Mr. Woodard, a scion of a successful family and a fixture in the West Coast club scene, became the middleman between drug dealers in Queens and a ring of cocaine suppliers in Los Angeles. Four other men are standing trial with Mr. McKenzie, accused of participating in the conspiracy to smuggle and sell drugs.

Two people accused of taking part in the smuggling operation have agreed to testify against their former business partners in return for lighter sentences, prosecutors said. One is a minor movie actor and rap musician from Queens who was close to Mr. Woodard and introduced him to Mr. McKenzie, then acted as a go-between, two people familiar with the prosecution’s witness list said.. The other, Lature Irvin II, is the son of one of the accused smugglers who the indictment says helped ship drugs and carried bundles of cash from New York to California.



A security-camera image, taken moments before the murder of Brandon Woodard in 2012, shows Mr. Woodard in the foreground and a gunman walking up behind him. Credit NYPD, via Associated Press
“Each of these cooperators were drug dealers, day in and day out, shifting and selling drugs for money,” Mr. Prevost said during jury selection. “There is no defending that. You are not going to like the cooperators.”


For his part, Mr. McKenzie says he is innocent and was not driving the car the day of the shooting. His lawyer, David Touger, argues Mr. McKenzie would never have used a car rented in his name to carry out what appears to be a carefully planned murder. “No one would be that stupid,” he said.

Prosecutors have acknowledged the evidence against Mr. McKenzie is circumstantial; they do not have an eye witness who saw him in the getaway car.

But the Manhattan district attorney plans to present evidence that Mr. McKenzie not only rented the car, but his DNA and fingerprints were also found inside it, defense lawyers say. Cellphone records will also be introduced to track his location.

“We will prove a series of facts, and the inescapable inference from those facts is that the defendant is guilty,” Mr. Prevost told jurors.

Defense lawyers said they would argue the cooperators have an incentive to lie and cannot be trusted. Glenn Hardy, a lawyer who represents the father of Mr. Irvin, asked prospective jurors if they would be willing to falsely testify against a family member to avoid a 140-year sentence in prison, which is the maximum Mr. Irvin’s son faces.

The defense will also cast doubt on the prosecution’s theory that Mr. McKenzie, who the authorities say owed money for previous shipments, would have had a motive to kill Mr. Woodard, who had been supplying him with cocaine. The theory flips the usual script on the street: Dealers are normally killed by suppliers for failing to pay their debts. “Why is he going to get rid of the goose that lays the golden egg?” Mr. Touger said. “It doesn’t work that way in the drug business.”

Though the arrest of Mr. McKenzie in December 2015 seemed like a significant breakthrough in the case, he has neither admitted his guilt nor named the mysterious gunman, despite facing 15 years to life in prison.

The indictment against the five defendants going on trial describes a drug smuggling conspiracy that transported at least 11 kilograms of cocaine from Los Angeles to Queens between August and December 2012.

The father and son team — Lature Irvin Sr. and Lature Irvin II — are accused of shipping the cocaine in U.P.S. packages to addresses provided to them by Mr. McKenzie and a second Queens man, Michael G. Wisdom.

The Irvins used an insurance company in Woodland Hills, Calif., as a front for the shipments, the indictment said. An employee at the company, Pedro Doloille, provided them with shipping labels, the indictment said. He is charged in the conspiracy. A fourth California man, Darryl Mason, is accused of supplying kilos of cocaine to the Irvins and to Mr. Woodard.

It was Mr. Woodard’s job to travel to New York and pick up cash payments from Mr. McKenzie for the already-delivered shipments. He did this three times, staying in expensive Manhattan hotels, according to the indictment.

On each occasion, he arranged to hand off the cash to the younger Mr. Irvin, who also flew to New York but always stayed at airport hotels. Mr. Irvin then lugged the cash back to Los Angeles in his suitcase, according to the indictment.

The relationship between Mr. McKenzie and the California suppliers soured in early December 2012. On Dec. 8, Mr. Woodard sent a message to Mr. McKenzie informing him he owed $161,000 for five kilos that had already been shipped, the indictment said.

The next day, Mr. Woodard and Mr. Irvin flew to New York on separate planes to collect the money, the indictment said. Mr. Woodard checked into the Thompson Hotel on Columbus Circle; Mr. Irvin stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel near Kennedy International Airport in Queens. “I’m posted at the Holiday Inn,” Mr. Irvin messaged Mr. Woodard that night. “Waitin on that call,” Mr. Woodard responded.

On Dec. 10, Mr. McKenzie arranged a meeting with Mr. Woodard near a piano store at West 58th Street and Seventh Avenue. Mr. Woodard headed to the rendezvous expecting to pick up the cash, the indictment said.

A month earlier, Mr. McKenzie had rented a Lincoln MKZ sedan from an Avis Car Rental in Huntington Station, N.Y. The day of the murder, prosecutors say he drove the car to Manhattan and parked it in front of the Saint Thomas Choir School at 202 West 58th Street.

A gunman with a 9-millimeter pistol was in the passenger seat, the indictment said. A video released by the New York Police Department shows the gunman getting out of the car and stretching his legs about 10 minutes before the killing.

Mr. Woodard walked by the car at about 2 p.m., going west toward Broadway, his eyes focused on his smartphone. Alone and unarmed, he stopped and glanced at the hooded man standing near the Lincoln, but, apparently not knowing him, he turned around and started to walk away. The man followed him. Then he raised a gun.

A Man on Trial in a Drug Shooting in Midtown, and an Actor’s Role
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.MAY 16, 2017
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Quran Pender, a Queens native who moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, ended up being the middleman between a drug ring in California and dealers in New York, arranging the shipment of more than 10 kilograms of drugs over five months, according to prosecutors.

Now Mr. Pender, a former Ivy League basketball player, is expected to be a key witness in the trial of a Queens man accused of orchestrating a brazen daytime murder on a Midtown Manhattan street in 2012.

Prosecutors say one of the New York dealers was Lloyd McKenzie, 39, a club promoter and mixtape producer. He is accused of hiring a gunman to kill Brandon Woodard, 31, a University of West Los Angeles law student who detectives said worked for the drug ring.

The day Mr. Woodard was shot dead on West 58th Street, he was headed to a meeting with Mr. McKenzie to collect $161,000 for five kilograms of cocaine that had been shipped, Jon Veiga, an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said on Monday in his opening statement to jurors.


Mr. McKenzie “met up with Brandon Woodard, all right, on Dec. 10, 2012,” Mr. Veiga said in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. “But rather than pay him for the cocaine, he had a bullet fired through Brandon Woodard’s skull.”

Mr. Woodard was shot by a hooded gunman in front of St. Thomas Choir School at 202 West 58th Street, near Columbus Circle, at 2 p.m. on Dec. 12. The killing stunned the city and set off a bicoastal investigation. Film of the encounter from the school’s security camera ran on television, and photographs ran in newspapers, but the gunman was never arrested.

Still, prosecutors say they have assembled strong circumstantial evidence that Mr. McKenzie drove the killer to that spot on 58th Street in a rented Lincoln MKZ sedan.

Earlier that day, he had arranged to meet Mr. Woodard there, using Mr. Pender to relay messages. Mr. McKenzie waited in the car during the shooting, prosecutors say, and then helped the gunman get away, driving him back to Queens.

Five other men are also on trial on drug and conspiracy charges for playing roles in the coast-to-coast cocaine-trafficking ring. Only Mr. McKenzie, however, is accused of taking part in the murder.

Mr. Veiga said Mr. McKenzie’s fingerprints and DNA were found in the car, as was a receipt from a Western Union transfer he made a couple of hours after the shooting. In addition, the prosecution has video showing the rented car entering Manhattan over the Queensboro Bridge before the shooting and leaving through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel afterward.

The testimony of Mr. Pender, perhaps best known for his lead role in the 2004 Queen Latifah comedy “The Cookout,” will also incriminate Mr. McKenzie, Mr. Veiga said. Mr. Pender acted as a go-between on the day of the shooting, relaying messages between Mr. Woodard and Mr. McKenzie. He delivered the last message to Mr. Woodard from Mr. McKenzie, directing him to meet at a piano store across 58th Street from the school at about 2 p.m.


Mr. McKenzie’s lawyer, David Touger, said his client did not drive the car that day and had been framed by Mr. Pender. “He’s totally innocent of all the crimes he is accused of today,” Mr. Touger told jurors.

Mr. Touger said Mr. Pender lied to the police after he was first arrested in May 2013, falsely accusing Mr. McKenzie of murder to save himself from a long sentence for dealing drugs.

“There are many reasons Mr. Pender’s tale doesn’t ring true,” Mr. Touger told the jury.

Mr. Touger said Mr. Pender’s testimony was the linchpin in the prosecution’s case. He is the only living witness who told the police that Mr. McKenzie and a second Queens man, Michael G. Wisdom, were New Yorkers who received the cocaine shipments.

Mr. Pender, 38, grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, and met Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Wisdom in high school, Mr. Veiga said. He went to Cornell University and played two seasons on the basketball team.

After graduation, he worked for a bank and a shipping company in New York City before embarking on a music career, and Mr. McKenzie produced his early mixtapes, Mr. Veiga said. A few years later, Mr. Pender moved to California to pursue acting.

In 2012, he ran into Mr. Woodard at a club in Los Angeles, and they struck up a friendship, Mr. Veiga said. That summer, Mr. Woodard asked Mr. Pender if he knew people in New York interested in buying cocaine at wholesale prices, Mr. Veiga said.

Mr. Pender said he did and then contacted Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Wisdom to set up a series of cocaine shipments that fall, Mr. Veiga said. The drugs were sent to the Queens men on consignment. Three times, Mr. Woodard traveled to New York to collect payments for the shipments. The fourth time, he was killed.

The prosecutors have no witness placing Mr. McKenzie at the scene that drizzly day. The gunman, who wore a hooded sweatshirt and tan pants, was filmed pacing the sidewalk outside the car and talking with the hidden driver through a window in the minutes before the shooting.

But at 2:13 p.m., a camera at the toll plaza of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel filmed the same Lincoln sedan entering Queens, Mr. Veiga said.


“You will get a glimpse of defendant Lloyd McKenzie’s face as he approaches the tollbooth,” Mr. Veiga said. “You will get a glimpse of the shooter’s tan pants.”

Queens Man Found Guilty of Hiring Gunman for Midtown Murder
By LUIS FERRÉ-SADURNÍJULY 28, 2017
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Brandon Woodard, right, moments before he was shot dead in December 2012 in New York. Credit New York Police Department
A Queens man accused of hiring a hit man who carried out a brazen daytime killing on a Midtown Manhattan street more than four years ago was convicted on Friday of second-degree murder and other charges.

Jurors deliberated for five days before delivering their verdict that said the man, Lloyd T. McKenzie, had hired a gunman to kill Brandon Woodard, 31, a law student from California, as Mr. Woodard awaited payment for drugs that had been delivered.

Video of the Dec. 10, 2012, murder was captured by a school security camera on West 58th Street and drew national attention to the crime, which exposed a California-to-New York smuggling ring.

Mr. McKenzie, 39, a party promoter from St. Albans, Queens, orchestrated the murder to avoid paying the $161,000 he owed Mr. Woodard for five kilograms of cocaine, prosecutors said during the three-month trial in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Three other people accused in the case — Darryl Mason, 53; Lature Irvin Sr., 45; and Michael G. Wisdom, 41 — were convicted of conspiracy and drug-related offenses. A fifth defendant, Pedro Doloille, 45, was acquitted of all charges.


Sandra Wellington, the mother of the victim, gasped when the forewoman said the jury of six men and six women had found Mr. McKenzie guilty of murdering her son.

Mr. McKenzie, wearing a blue button-down shirt and black pants, was unfazed as he stared at the jury and Ms. Wellington’s sobs filled the courtroom.

Ms. Wellington, who came from California to attend the three-month trial, said justice had been served. An image of her dead son was the first thing that came to mind when she heard the jury’s verdict, she said later.

“I just never thought that he deserved to die,” Ms. Wellington said through tears. “Whatever he did, right or wrong, he didn’t deserve to die.”

Photo

An undated photo of Brandon Woodard with his mother, Sandra Wellington.
Prosecutors said Mr. McKenzie lured Mr. Woodard to a spot near a piano store in Midtown, then drove a gunman there in a rented sedan and waited in the car as Mr. Woodard was shot in the back of the head.

Seconds later, the hooded gunman got into the car and Mr. McKenzie drove him away, they said.

The gunman has never been identified.

“Killing each other is just what drug dealers do when they have a drug dealing dispute,” Christopher Prevost, the lead prosecutor, said in his closing argument. “There is no mediation of dispute in the drug world.”

Mr. McKenzie faces 15 to 25 years in prison on the second-degree murder charge when he is sentenced by the judge in the case, Justice Maxwell Wiley. In addition to murder, Mr. McKenzie was convicted on weapons, conspiracy and drug charges.

The case against him hinged on the testimony of Quran Pender, a former actor from Queens, who was part of the drug ring and cooperated with the authorities.

Mr. Pender, 31, testified that he believed Mr. McKenzie planned to pay Mr. Woodard for the drugs when he arranged the meeting via text messages and phone calls the day of the killing.


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“McKenzie said he couldn’t drive over to Brandon’s hotel because there was a lot of traffic,” Mr. Pender testified. “So he asked me to tell Brandon to meet him at 58th Street at a piano store.”

Mr. McKenzie’s lawyers tried to undermine Mr. Pender’s credibility by citing his history of petty crimes and marijuana dealing, and by saying that Mr. Pender had incentive to lie to avoid a long prison sentence.

In his closing argument, David Touger, a lawyer for Mr. McKenzie, suggested that Mr. Pender actually orchestrated the murder in an attempt to take over Mr. Woodard’s drug business and then framed Mr. McKenzie.

Mr. Prevost said Mr. Pender told the truth, adding that his testimony was corroborated by other evidence, including phone and bank records, video from security cameras and DNA found in the rented car.


Mr. Prevost said that only Mr. McKenzie’s DNA was found on the steering wheel and gearshift of the rented Lincoln MKZ sedan used to flee the crime scene.

Mr. McKenzie’s lawyers suggested that Mr. Pender’s associates borrowed Mr. McKenzie’s car during a party in Queens the day before the murder, then used it to carry out the crime.

The trial, which began on May 1, opened a window into a subculture of party promoters in New York City and Los Angeles who dealt drugs on the side.

Mr. Pender, a former actor and Ivy League basketball player, said he met Mr. Woodard in early 2012 and they began partying at nightclubs together. Months later, Mr. Woodard asked him if he knew someone in New York who would sell cocaine on consignment.

Mr. Pender contacted Mr. McKenzie, a high school friend. Mr. McKenzie agreed to deliver cocaine in New York, Mr. Pender said.

Mr. Pender said he was a middleman from August through December 2012, arranging drug deals between Mr. Woodard in California and Mr. McKenzie in New York.

The other defendants ran the California side of the drug operation, said Lature Irvin Jr., a second cooperating witness.

Mr. Doloille, the only defendant acquitted of all charges, said he had expected to win his case, but had doubts because he was not certain he would get a fair trial.

“I didn’t know what was in the boxes,” Mr. Doloille said, referring to the boxes of cocaine shipped from California to New York as part of the drug operation.

The sentencings in the case have not been scheduled.