Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Richard Swygert was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison on murder, two counts of attempted murder and related charges for killing one man and seriously injuring two others in a New Years’ Day shooting in 2021. Swygert and one of his companions got into an argument with another group at the Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens and the defendant sprayed the group with bullets.

District Attorney Katz said: “Richard Swygert opened fired in front of the former Umbrella Hotel on New Year’s Day in 2021 committing the first homicide of that year. The bullets he unleashed killed one young man, critically injured another and left a third seriously wounded. We cannot normalize gun violence. A jury convicted the defendant of murder and he was sentenced today to 75 to life years in prison as a direct consequence of his criminal actions.”

Swygert, 24, of the Bronx, was convicted at trial in March of murder in the second degree, two counts of attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first and second degrees, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree following a three-week jury trial.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant sentenced the defendant today to 75 years to life in prison.

According to the charges and trial testimony, on January 1, 2021, at approximately 1:09 a.m., Swygert and a group of companions entered the Umbrella Hotel on 82^nd Avenue and Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens and waited for an elevator. A few minutes later, the three victims exited the elevator and Swygert and his group followed them to the main hotel lobby.

Both groups left the hotel, and words were exchanged between one of the victims and one of Swygert’s companions. A physical fight ensued between the two men.

Swygert took out a gun and fired multiple rounds. The defendant shot 20-year-old Robert Deandre Williams five times. He then fired at the second victim six times, striking him in the stomach, arms and legs. Swygert shot the third victim once in the leg.

Williams was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead as the result of multiple gunshot wounds.

The two surviving victims, also aged 20, were taken to local hospitals for medical treatment. One man required life-saving emergency surgery as well as additional surgeries to save his leg from amputation. The second man was treated for a gunshot wound to the thigh.

Thirteen spent shell casings were recovered from the front of the Umbrella Hotel, which permanently closed for business a short time after the incident.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Kanella Georgopoulos of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau prosecuted the case, with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Veronika Podoprigora under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys John Kosinski, Bureau Chief, and Karen Ross and Jonathan Selkowe, Deputy Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Shawn Clark.