COLUMBUS CIRCLE — A big time drug dealer who orchestrated the daylight Midtown execution of a Los Angeles law student in December 2012 was arraigned on murder charges Wednesday after a three-year bi-coastal investigation, officials said.
Lloyd McKenzie, 37, was arrested Tuesday morning for ordering the fatal hit on Brandon Woodward, 31, following a cocaine rip-off a month before, police and prosecutors said.
Woodward was texting on his cell phone on West 58th Street near Seventh Avenue when a gunman came up from behind and shot him dead. The killer fled in a Lincoln MKZ driven by McKenzie, the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.
“This brazen shooting, stemming from a major interstate drug conspiracy, shocked and frightened many at the time,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
According to prosecutors, the hit was ordered after McKenzie and his South Queens crew stiffed Woodward on a five kilogram package of cocaine.
The California man flew to New York unarmed expecting to collect $161,000 from the drug shipment during a meeting in Midtown on Dec. 10, 2012, authorities said.
Instead, as Woodward texted on his phone, the triggerman walked up behind him and fatally shot him in the neck, according to prosecutors.
Five other suspects in the shooting are still at large.
McKenzie was ordered held without bail at their Manhattan Supreme Court arraignment Wednesday morning.
He is next due in court March 15.
