You can't, you can't really talk like that. 

On Feb. 22, Soto got his vengeance, luring Rivera to a spot outside a home on Bayview Place in Canarsie, where he and an associate shot Rivera and drove off, Palacio said.

 That night, Team Duke took control of the gang,  Palacio said.

Vladimir Hernandez, the owner of the Canarsie home, testified Wednesday about hearing the shot outside his place, then seeing a car that was blocking his driveway peel off. Moments later, he saw Rivera bleeding to death, the puffs of his breath weakening in the cold winter air.

 He stopped breathing after a couple of minutes,  Hernandez said. An ambulance crew arrived, and  they tried to revive him, but he was dead. 

Soto's defense lawyer, Lisa Scolari, admitted he was a member of the gang, but said he denied committing the murder.

 There are a number of things that we cannot deny. Jason Soto is a Crip,  she told the jury in her opening statement.  Jason Soto has been a bad guy. He has done some bad things… There's no doubt they were a plague on that neighborhood. But that information is background. 

She said no forensic evidence tied Soto to the crime, that prosecutors didn't have his fingerprints, DNA or the murder weapon, and had no witnesses or video of Soto committing the murder.

 Anger, pain, outrage, they're powerful feelings,  Scolari said.  But feelings are not evidence of murder. Feelings change. 

Prosecutors have long known Soto was their prime suspect in Rivera's murder, calling him a  cold-blooded assassin who has vowed to kill again  as they tried to get him sent away for 40 years on federal gun charges in 2018. After an evidentiary hearing in January 2018, Brooklyn Federal Judge Leo Glasser found that prosecutors presented  clear and convincing  proof that Soto committed the killing, though sentenced him to just five years.

Soto completed that sentence in December 2023, and was locked up in Pennsylvania for several months after that for violating his parole. He was indicted for Rivera's murder in December 2024.

While locked up between 2016 and 2018, he wrote an  autobiographical manuscript  that referenced Rivera.  This comrade of ours was no longer a friend of ours, and that envy made him a monster,  he wrote, according to court filings.

He allegedly wrote of Graham,  I failed him as a brother, but would never fail him again.