Local’s killer sentenced to die

Ronell Wilson, 31, who murdered two police officers during an undercover drug buy in 2003, was sentenced to death on Sept. 10. Wilson, who killed Baldwin Harbor resident and undercover New York City police detective James Nemorin and another detective, Rodney Andrews, was found guilty of murder in July, after a five-week trial.

This was the second time that Wilson was given the death penalty. The first was when he was initially convicted of the murders in 2006, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturned that sentence in 2010. The case was kicked back to U.S. District Court for retrial.

Wilson is the first recipient of the federal death penalty in New York state in half a century, but his legal team is expected to appeal.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis called the murders, which occurred in March 2003 during a sting operation on Staten Island, “one of the most grisly and horrific crimes this city has ever seen.” Wilson, who said he believed he was selling a TEC-9 semiautomatic handgun on the black market, ended up killing

Nemorin, 36, and Andrews, 34, in order to steal $1,200 the undercover policemen had brought to “buy” the illegal firearm. He disposed of the officers’ bodies and drove away.