Alvin Bragg would rather indict Trump than protect gays from killer gangs 

Five weeks and two blocks apart.

That’s the short distance — measured both geographically and in days — that separated John Umberger and Julio Ramirez. 

The two men didn’t know each other in life, but they’re connected in perpetuity after their parallel deaths were ruled homicides, earlier this month.

Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for New York’s Medical Examiner’s Office, confirmed both men were victims of ‘drug-facilitated theft’ and fatally poisoned with the same mix of fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, cocaine, lidocaine and ethanol.

A significant breakthrough, the new development could set the stage for criminal charges, although, chillingly, the culprits remain unknown and at-large.

This alone would be bad enough, but it has been almost a year since the tragic events first took place. 

Ramirez, a Brooklyn-based social worker, was the first to be killed. He was captured by a security camera leaving the Ritz Bar and Lounge, a gay club on West 46th Street, with three unidentified men around 3:17 a.m. on Thursday, April 21, 2022. 

He was found dead in the back of a taxi an hour later; his phone and wallet were missing, and his bank accounts had been cleared of $20,000. 

The following month, on May 28, 2022, Umberger — a political advisor for the American Center for Law and Justice — also died. He was last seen at The Q NYC on Eighth Ave, another gay club, where he’d gone alone after dinner with friends. Shortly before 4:00 a.m., surveillance footage showed him arriving at his Upper East Side residence with three unknown men. 

Two of them entered the property alongside Umberger, but left alone within the hour. 

His body was found four days later, on June 1. Like Ramirez, his phone had been stolen and more than $25,000 had been transferred from his account using facial recognition software on apps such as Venmo.

Since then, a number of other gay men have also come forward with almost-identical stories, stoking fears that a major criminal gang is targeting men in New York’s gay bars.

Only last month, three men were drugged and robbed after visiting The Eagle nightclub on West 28th Street. They too had thousands of dollars stolen via smartphone apps.

Yet, rather than proceed with urgency, New York’s woke district attorney, Alvin Bragg, seems more concerned with indicting Donald Trump. The veteran prosecutor is currently obsessing over some trivial deal between the former POTUS and porn star Stormy Daniels, which is old news at best.

Meanwhile, under his leadership, overall crime is up nearly 60% compared to this time last year. Felony assault is up 22%, while robbery is up 56%. Grand larceny jumped by 79% and auto theft more than doubled.

The swell in incidents isn’t restricted to certain areas, either. 72 out of NYC’s 77 police precincts have seen a rise in crime.

So does Bragg have his priorities all wrong? 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy nailed it when he tweeted: “Alvin Bragg is abusing his office to target President Trump while he’s reduced a majority of felonies, including violent crimes, to misdemeanors. He has different rules for political opponents.” 

None of us should be surprised by this. Bragg is an activist who’s using his power to implement  some sort of quasi reparations system. If nothing else, this was to be expected from him.

But we should all be disappointed in the lack of outrage from New York’s gay progressives. 

I mean, Manhattan is the birthplace of the gay rights movement. Yet the silence from LGBT groups on this case is deafening…presumably because Umberger was white and conservative. 

I’ve seen it myself; I recently visited New York and witnessed no efforts to inform or protect gay people from risk. As a lone traveler, I was probably a prime target for criminals on the prowl, yet there was nothing to warn me of potential dangers, irrespective of whether I was in Chelsea, Greenwich Village, or Williamsburg. There was simply nothing; not even posters alerting me to pickpockets. 

Where is the gay community’s energy? Where is Andy Cohen? Where is the hectoring from Hollywood director Ryan Murphy? Likewise, where is Chuck Schumer and Kathy Hochul, our supposed liberal allies?

Currently, Erik Bottcher, a New York City Council member, is the only politician to call on the DA’s office to solve the crimes against Umberger and Ramirez. 

“We demand justice,” he told NBC News. “As we approach the one-year anniversary of their murders, the pain experienced by their families, friends and our entire community has only been exacerbated by the fact that their killers have not been brought to Justice.”

Unfortunately, his plea is likely to get lost in the noise of Trump’s imminent arrest.

Ironically, that’ll happen while real criminals run free — with Bragg’s implicit approval.