A notorious Crips gang leader will spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering a rival execution-style inside a Brooklyn hookah lounge six years ago, prosecutors said Thursday.
Larry Pagett, the East Coast leader of the Eight Trey Crips gang, received a life sentence in the 2015 slaying of Chrispine Philip, who was gunned down inside the Buda Hookah Lounge in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
Pagett was convicted of murder in aid of racketeering in October 2018.
Prosecutors said the victim was a gangbanger from a rival Folk Nation set.
The gang boss had suspected Philip of killing an Eight Trey member in Trinadad in the spring of 2015 — then encountered him at the club in August of that year, prosecutors charged.
Pagett pulled a gun, shot Philip several times, then ended his life with a single shot to the back of his head, prosecutors said.
“Larry Pagett will deservedly spend the rest of his life behind bars for brazenly committing an execution-style, gang-related murder inside a lounge in Brooklyn,” Acting US Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said in a statement.
The Eight Trey Crips, which operated out of the Flatbush Gardens housing complex, had been locked in a deadly beef with Folk Nation prior to Philip’s slaying.
Jurors at the trial were shown graphic video footage of the shooting, which captured Pagett firing shots at Philip before falling over, then pulling himself up and walking out the door.
Philips’ dead body could be seen briefly on the floor as revelers scrambled inside club to escape the mayhem.
