Leader of Brooklyn’s Ninedee Gang guilty of ordering slay of woman who beat him up

A Brooklyn gang member was convicted Thursday of orchestrating the murder of a former federal witness after she dissed him and beat him up in a fight over Fourth of July fireworks.

Maliek Miller, 30, the leader of the Ninedee Gang, didn’t fire the bullets that killed Shatavia Walls on July 7, 2020, but he ordered her demise, jurors determined Thursday after a four-week trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The jury found Miller guilty of all seven counts against him, including racketeering and murder in aid of racketeering. He faces a mandatory life sentence.

Walls, 33, was caught in the middle of a decade-long gang beef in East New York’s Pink Houses, where building numbers mark the territory of rival gangs.

After being shot by a reputed member of the Loopy Gang — which is linked to the Ninedees – Walls took the stand in a 2019 federal court trial. That earned her the label of “snitch,” and the continued scorn of the criminal element in the Pink Houses.

“Shatavia Been a Rat And She Still Ratting,” read a flyer posted around the housing development before her testimony.

Walls didn’t see herself as a snitch, explaining on the stand, “I stand up for myself…. I stick up for myself.”

On July 4, she ran afoul of Miller and his gang, fighting with him and his cousin over fireworks in the housing complex. She got the better of them and beat them both up, and Miller, who called her a “snitch” during the melee, fired a shot in the air before leaving.

“You heard at this trial that getting beat up at all, let alone by a woman, that’s how you lose status in the Ninedee Gang,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Dean told jurors.

“The common purposes of the Ninedees gang, those are violence and money,” Dean said.

Miller and his gang started plotting their revenge on Walls, and when he heard that she was looking to make peace, to “dead the beef,” he told his crew, “F— her. She’s a rat,” Dean recounted.

On July 7, gang members spotted her, chased her down a path in the housing development, and riddled her with bullets. She died 10 days later.

Ninedee members Quintin Green and Joe Santana fired the bullets, while another member, Shakur Bay, tossed the clothes the duo wore down an incinerator chute, prosecutors said. Another Nindedee member, Kevin Wint, rented a hotel room at the Best Western near JFK Airport where the gunmen could hide out overnight.

All four have since taken plea deals.

Jurors saw evidence of the gang’s marijuana dealing, and its COVID and unemployment fraud, along with social media posts and rap videos laying out their exploits.

“This is not bragging. This is not fantasy. This is not play’s on words. These were specific incidents, specific rivals, specific acts of violence,” Dean said in her closing argument.

Miller’s lawyer, Karloff Commissiong, tried to shift the blame to Chayanne Fernandez, a gang member who took the stand against Miller, calling him “a life-long manipulator… with nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Miller’s father, who attended court to hear the verdict, declined comment Thursday.

“Today’s verdict is momentous because it holds Miller accountable for orchestrating a cowardly plot to kill a woman who bravely stood up to his Ninedee Gang, and it upholds the rule of law for the residents of the Pink Houses who just want to go about their lives and raise their children without the plague of violence and danger inflicted on them by ruthless criminals like the defendant,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.