New York – Federal authorities announced that a federal jury has found Joel Spigelman guilty of ordering the murder of a female drug courier in March 1999.

The jury convicted Spigelman of intentional murder, felony murder in aid of racketeering, murder committed with a firearm, and narcotics trafficking.

Spigelman operated a jewelry business on 47th Street in the Diamond District in Manhattan for many years. From that office, Spigelman sold millions of dollars of stolen jewelry and kilogram quantities of cocaine.      He obtained some of the stolen jewelry and cocaine from South American robbery crews who committed violent armed robberies and sold the proceeds of those robberies to Spiegelman.

He also gave tips to violent armed robbery crews on targets to be robbed, providing the names and addresses of his own jewelry and drug customers in return for a share of whatever was stolen, often including the jewelry that he had sold to those customers

On March 17, 1999, a robbery was committed as planned and, on Spigelman’s order, Alex Restrepo executed the woman with a single gunshot to the back of the head. The woman’s body was dumped in Forest Park in Queens. She has never been identified.

Restepo was previously prosecuted by this Office and convicted of the killing of former New York City Police Officer Donald Pagani, among other crimes, after a jury trial in 2002, and is currently serving a life sentence.