Suffolk County DA files sweeping 57‑count indictment against 18 alleged members of Riverhead‑based gang

A sitting Mount Vernon Police Department detective was among 18 people charged when Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney unveiled a 57-count indictment targeting the "48 Gang," a Riverhead-based crew accused of two murders, five shootings, and eight armed robberies spanning four years across Long Island.

Kyren Braunskill, who was employed as a detective with Mount Vernon PD at the time of the announcement, faces conspiracy to possess weapons charges after prosecutors alleged he supplied firearms directly to gang members. The presence of a sworn officer in a street gang indictment is uncommon, and it signals that the DA's office pursued the full weapons supply chain rather than limiting its focus to the shooters and robbers at street level.

The indictment covers alleged criminal conduct between 2021 and 2025. Justin Dicks and Jacob Moore are charged in connection with the 2021 murder of Marcel Arrington in Mastic Beach. Nickomas Allen faces charges in the 2023 killing of James Ayers, who was shot on Main Street in Riverhead. Across all 57 counts, prosecutors also catalogued possession of 13 illegal weapons, underscoring how central the firearms pipeline was to the gang's alleged operations.

The case was built through a multi-agency investigation coordinated by the DA's Gang Violence Task Force alongside the Riverhead Police Department, Suffolk County Police Department, Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, Southampton Town Police Department, Nassau County Police Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force. Surveillance, forensic evidence, and witness interviews formed the evidentiary foundation prosecutors plan to present in upcoming court proceedings.

Community leaders and victims' families attended the March 27 announcement, a visible sign of how deeply the gang's alleged four-year run of violence cut through Riverhead and the surrounding towns. With Braunskill's charges almost certain to draw scrutiny from internal affairs and potentially federal investigators, the case is unlikely to end at arraignment.