Drugs in nightclubs left 4 dead in 15 days, Manhattan prosecutors say

In just 15 days, Kenwood Allen has killed four people, prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Wednesday.

Allen, 33, was charged late last year after prosecutors said he was part of a criminal operation targeting people coming out of bars on Manhattan’s Lower East Side after a long night out. Prosecutors said he would drug victims with fentanyl and other opioids before stealing their credit cards and other valuables, often leaving them unconscious on the street.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg said Wednesday that further investigations had revealed the full scope of Mr. Allen’s criminal operation. He is now accused of killing 21 people between March and December 2022 and murdering five people within five months, including the four between July 22 and August 6.

Mr Allen has been charged with 10 counts of first degree murder – two for each death, one accusing him of acting with depraved indifference to human life, the other of acting in furtherance of another crime. He was also charged with 17 counts of robbery and attempted robbery. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Wednesday.

The Legal Aid Society, representing Mr Allen, has not responded to a request for comment on the allegations.

A prosecutor, Brian Rodkey, said Mr Allen, who is also charged with conspiracy, was collaborating with at least one other person who is expected to be charged as his co-defendant.

Authorities initially thought the 2022 overdose deaths in midtown Manhattan were unrelated. But by April, police and state prosecutors had uncovered not one but two criminal operations in which victims were drugged after they emerged from bars, with fatal consequences.

The case against Mr Allen is separate from that against five other men charged with a string of drugging and murders in April. That group, prosecutors said, targeted the patrons of gay bars and sparked fear in New York City’s LGBTQ community. In that case, no trial date has been set.

“These allegedly pernicious drug and robbery programs have left far too many families mourning the loss of their loved ones,” Bragg said in a statement.

Mr. Allen was sent to prison after his first charge last year and after a brief appearance in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday, the judge in his case, Felicia A. Mennin, said he would be returned.