Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Michael Williams has been sentenced to 22 years to life in prison and Kevon Johnson has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for killing 24-year-old Jabeon Bivins in August 2022. Johnson and Williams fired multiple shots in an open walkway at the Redfern Houses as Bivins and his friends fled. Both defendants were convicted of murder in the second degree and other charges by a jury in June.

District Attorney Katz said: “These two men opened fire on a summer evening with no regard for anyone around them and left a young man to die in the street. Gun violence has stolen too many lives in our communities. We are attacking gun violence at every level. The defendants will now serve lengthy sentences in prison.”

Johnson, 30, and Williams, 25, both of Far Rockaway, were each convicted by a jury of murder in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Queens Supreme Court Justice Mary Bejarano yesterday sentenced defendant Johnson to 20 years to life in prison and defendant Williams to 22 years to life in prison.

DA Katz said that, according to the charges and trial testimony, on August 15, 2022, at approximately 6:20 p.m., Johnson and Williams arrived at a circular walkway near 12-50 Redfern Avenue in Far Rockaway. They started shooting at a group of people outside the Redfern Houses that included Jabeon Bivins of Freeport, another man and three young women.

Johnson and Williams fired a combined total of 21 gunshots at Bivins and his friends as they were running away. Investigators recovered sixteen .40-caliber Smith & Wesson shell casings and five .45-caliber shell casings from the walkway where both defendants were standing.

Bivins was shot in the back of the head as he ran across Redfern Avenue and collapsed in the street, dying instantly from his gunshot injury.

Senior Assistant District Attorneys Jonathan Brewer and Genevieve Gadaleta of the District Attorney’s Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Sennett, Bureau Chief, and Barry Frankenstein and Philip Anderson, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Joseph T. Conley III.