Bronx Gang Member Gets Life for Killing Milton Grant Over His Watch in 2021
Ramon Rodriguez, 22, shot Milton Grant in the head in June 2021 and took his watch, federal prosecutors said. He was also sentenced for a jail assault.
A member of the Trinitarios gang who shot Milton Grant in the head during a robbery in Manhattan in 2021 and took his watch has been sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff imposed the sentence on Ramon Rodriguez, 22, of the Bronx, also known as “Pollo,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Oct. 19, 2026. A jury convicted Rodriguez on Feb. 20, 2026, after a two-week trial, of Grant’s murder, the attempted murder of Grant’s friend and other racketeering and firearms offenses.
He also received a concurrent 10-year term in a separate case, in which Rodriguez pleaded guilty to an assault on another inmate at a federal jail in Brooklyn. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release.
Two robberies, eight days apart
Prosecutors said Rodriguez was a member of the Trinitarios from at least 2018 through 2025 and an associate of the Shooting Boys, a Trinitarios set that operated mainly in the Bronx and Manhattan. Members of the set committed murders, attempted murders, robberies, drug trafficking, fraud and witness retaliation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
On June 13, 2021, Rodriguez and members of the Shooting Boys committed a robbery outside a Bronx nightclub, during which Rodriguez shot a man in the leg, causing significant injuries, prosecutors said.
Eight days later, on June 21, 2021, the group carried out another robbery outside a Manhattan nightclub and targeted Grant for his watch. Rodriguez shot Grant in the head, killing him, and took the watch from his body, prosecutors said. When Grant’s friend ran, Rodriguez fired at him too.
Grant was 34 and was killed in Inwood, in Upper Manhattan, CBS New York reported in June 2023, when investigators announced that Rodriguez, then 18, had become the fourth person arrested in the case. Police said at the time that three armed men tried to rob Grant in his car and shot him as he tried to drive away.
An attack inside the jail
After his arrest, Rodriguez was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said he kept taking part in the gang there, including by repeatedly having weapons.
On Dec. 3, 2023, Rodriguez and other members and associates of the Shooting Boys ambushed an inmate the gang suspected of cooperating with law enforcement, and stabbed and slashed him, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The inmate was seriously injured.
“Rodriguez decided that a watch was worth more than Milton Grant’s life, murdering him to steal it and then trying to kill Grant’s friend as he fled,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said.
The New York City Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case. It was prosecuted by the office’s Violent Organizations and Crime Unit.
