Brooklyn Men Plead Guilty In 1989 Bed-Stuy Murder Case: Feds

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Two Brooklyn men are facing 20 year sentences in prison for their involvement in a decades-old murder case, prosecutors announced this week.

William Skinner and Dorian Brooks — who also goes by "Kool-Aid" — pleaded guilty on Wednesday to drug charges related to the 1989 killing of Efren Cardenas, who was shot more than 20 times on Herkimer Street, prosectors with Manhattan's Southern District said.

Skinner and Brooks were accused of shooting Cardenas to further their cocaine-dealing business. They aimed to distribute more than five kilograms of the drug, according to the prosecutors.

“Today, William Skinner and Dorian Brooks admitted their participation in murdering Efren Cardenas over three decades ago, in February 1989," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. "Today’s guilty pleas demonstrate that law enforcement will never give up on murder victims and their loved ones, no matter how long it takes to achieve justice.”

Prosecutors originally charged three men, including Skinner and Brooks, in the murder case in 2019. They did not specify the status of the case against the third man, Luis Merced, in their announcement about the guilty pleas on Wednesday.

Skinner and Brooks each pled to one count of conspiring to distribute cocaine and crack cocaine, which carries a maximum prison term of 20 years, prosecutors said.

They are scheduled to be sentenced in 2022.