Miranda Devine: Anguished mom gets justice after refusing to stay silent about gang preying on young gay men

It was the almost perfect crime.Hell’s Kitchen gay bars wanted to keep it quiet so customers weren’t scared away.New York Democrats wanted to keep it quiet to downplay law-and-order issues before a crucial gubernatorial election in November 2022.The cops were already overwhelmed with crime and struggling with the aftermath of COVID and “Defund the Police” madness.But the mother of one of the ­victims, Linda Clary, refused to be quiet.She knew that there was a gang preying on young gay men in Hell’s Kitchen.

She didn’t want anyone else to die like her son John Umberger, 33, had died in the early hours of May 29, 2022, drugged with fentanyl, his final moments captured by his snickering killers on a 14-second video that sealed their fate.Clary refused to remain silent and came to The Post to warn the gay community of predators on the prowl.She was blessed with one detective who joined the dots between her son’s murder and the similar unsolved death of Julio Ramirez, 25, who had been found dead in a cab a month earlier after being drugged and robbed.In the end, Detective Randy Rose and his partner, Detective Alex Argiro, cracked the case of the gay-bar “roofie” killers, interviewed dozens of living victims, and put five of the predators behind bars.Jayqwan Hamilton, 37, Robert Demaio, 36, and Jacob Barroso, 32, were convicted of murder, robbery, burglary, and conspiracy to rob and drug people outside Manhattan nightclubs, which led to the deaths of Umberger and Ramirez.On Wednesday, Hamilton and Demaio were sentenced to 40 years to life while Barroso was sentenced to 20 years to life.In March, two other men in the case, Shane Hoskins and Andre Butts, were sentenced to eight years in jail for their roles in the scheme.During the investigation, police realized there was a second criminal gang preying on revelers at bars on the Lower East Side around the same time using similar methods.Prosecutors say Kenwood Allen, who has pleaded not guilty, killed...