Quincino Waide Jr. says prosecutors escalated pressure over 18 months, then indicted him after he repeatedly declined to talk
LEXINGTON, Ky. — A man charged as an accessory in the federal murder-for-hire prosecution of a Lexington street gang asked a judge Monday to throw out the charge, arguing that prosecutors indicted him only because he refused — again and again, over more than a year — to cooperate against his co-defendants.
Quincino Lamont Waide Jr., 26, filed a motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, calling his indictment a textbook case of vindictive prosecution. His attorney, Whitney True Lawson, wrote in an accompanying memorandum that the government possessed the same evidence against Waide for more than a year before charging him, and that the only thing that changed during that time was his continued silence.
Waide is the eighth defendant in a sweeping case alleging that members of the “Hot Boyz,” a self-identified Lexington gang, conspired to kill a cooperating federal witness. He is charged with a single count of accessory after the fact — the least serious charge in the case — for allegedly helping stage a getaway vehicle the morning of the killing.
The killing of Kristopher Lewis
The case centers on the Sept. 29, 2023, shooting death of Kristopher Lewis, a drug courier who had agreed to testify against his former boss, Rollie Deshawn Lamar, in a federal narcotics and money-laundering prosecution. According to court filings and hearing testimony by FBI Special Agent Isaac Robison, Lamar came to believe Lewis had cooperated with the DEA, and prosecutors allege he arranged to have Lewis killed before trial.
Lewis was gunned down at approximately 8:15 a.m. in the parking lot of Koch Air at 132 Trade Street in Lexington, moments after arriving for work. Witnesses told investigators that three masked individuals emerged from a dark-colored sedan and opened fire before fleeing. The car, a black Acura TL, was later linked to Daquis Damarr Sharp, who prosecutors describe as a central figure in the Hot Boyz.
Four alleged gang members — Sharp, William Quejohn Dixon, Desmond Elijah Bellomy and Jatiece Alvin Parks — are charged with carrying out the shooting. A fifth, Deangelo Montavius Boone, and a sixth, Casey Allison Morris, face murder-for-hire and related counts. All have pleaded not guilty. Lamar faces the same charges as the alleged organizer.
The trial has been continued indefinitely while the U.S. Attorney General decides whether to seek the death penalty.
What prosecutors say Waide did
Prosecutors allege Waide’s role was limited but critical: staging a black Dodge Durango near Centre Parkway in Lexington so the four shooters could switch vehicles after abandoning Sharp’s Acura at the scene. The government’s evidence rests primarily on cellphone location data showing Waide’s phone was active in relevant locations in the early morning hours before the killing, and on text messages recovered from Dixon’s phone later that night.
In those messages, exchanged between Sharp and Dixon at 11:25 p.m. on the night of the murder, the two discussed paying “Fred” — Waide’s nickname — $1,000 for his involvement. Dixon wrote that Waide had just gotten into his car and told them to give him “5,” apparently referring to $500. They settled on $1,000, split four ways at $250 each among the alleged shooters. At the time the messages were sent, according to Agent Robison’s testimony, cellphone records placed Waide and Dixon in the same location.
‘An opportunity to help eliminate yourself’
Waide’s motion lays out a detailed timeline of what his attorney characterizes as escalating government pressure. It began on Aug. 14, 2024, when federal agents interviewed Waide in a meeting arranged, without his knowledge, through his state probation officer. An agent told Waide during that interview that he did not believe Waide had killed anyone, but suggested he may have played a supporting role, making him potentially “complicit to murder.” Waide asked for a lawyer and said nothing more.
Six weeks later, on Sept. 30, 2024, a target letter was hand-delivered to Waide — again by his probation officer — informing him he was the target of a federal homicide investigation and inviting him to meet with prosecutors. He did not respond.
On April 24, 2025, law enforcement executed a search warrant for Waide’s cellphone at the Richmond, Kentucky, apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Sierra Lang. When officers approached, Waide fled inside the apartment, and officers noted he appeared to be supporting something heavy at his waistband. After a 25-minute standoff, Waide and Lang exited. Officers found a Glock 21 .45-caliber handgun hidden in an HVAC vent in a child’s bedroom, along with ammunition elsewhere in the home. Lang told officers the gun was hers and that she had hidden it. Ballistic testing later linked the weapon to a separate October 2024 shooting in which Waide is believed to have been the target of rival gang members.
Waide was then taken to the Richmond Police Department and interrogated about the Lewis murder. According to the defense filing, agents told him the U.S. Attorney’s office intended to seek the death penalty in the case and that he was facing life in prison or worse. Waide again declined to speak and asked for a lawyer. He was subsequently charged in a separate federal case with possession of a firearm after a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction — a charge his attorney describes as rarely pursued on its own at the federal level.
The prosecutor’s email
Perhaps the most striking exhibit attached to Waide’s motion is an Aug. 21, 2025, email from Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Lauren Melton to Lawson. In the message, filed as a court exhibit, Melton wrote that prosecutors did not believe they actually needed Waide’s testimony against anyone in the Lewis case, noting that their evidence was already strong and had recently been bolstered by newly discovered text messages.
Nevertheless, the prosecutor wrote, Waide’s “best chance at avoiding charges in the Lewis homicide or any future Hot Boyz case” was to sit down with investigators and explain what he was asked to do. If he could persuade them he did not know the purpose of his assistance, Melton wrote, the government would likely decline to charge him. She added that given his low sentencing guideline range in the gun case, she believed she could recommend a time-served sentence if Waide cooperated.
Waide again declined. On Nov. 6, 2025, a grand jury returned a superseding indictment adding Waide as a defendant charged with accessory after the fact.
The vindictive prosecution claim
Under federal law, prosecutors have broad discretion over whom to charge, but that discretion is limited by the Due Process Clause. A defendant can win dismissal by showing either direct evidence that a prosecutor acted to punish the exercise of a legal right, or by establishing circumstances that create a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness — which shifts the burden to the government to offer a legitimate explanation.
Lawson argues that the timeline speaks for itself: the government held the same evidence against Waide before August 2024 that it held when it charged him in November 2025, and the only intervening development was his refusal to cooperate. Citing the Sixth Circuit’s decision in United States v. LaDeau, Lawson wrote that the record shows nothing to suggest the superseding indictment compensated for new evidence or a changed understanding of the case.
Waide’s motion also quotes the Ninth Circuit’s observation that a refusal to cooperate is every defendant’s right under the Fifth Amendment, and that a defendant may not be made to suffer for exercising it.
The government has not yet responded to the motion. Waide has also filed a separate motion to sever his case from his co-defendants.
A 15-month sentence and a new charge
Waide pleaded guilty to the federal gun charge in a separate case and was sentenced on Jan. 13, 2026, to 15 months in prison — near the top of his guideline range of 10 to 16 months — by Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, the same judge presiding over the murder-for-hire case. During sentencing, the prosecution emphasized Waide’s alleged ties to the Hot Boyz and his purported role in the Lewis murder, while Lawson argued the government’s evidence of his involvement in gang activity amounted to little more than photographs and someone else’s text messages.
The accessory charge Waide now faces carries a maximum sentence of half the penalty for the underlying offense. Because the principal charges in the case — witness tampering by killing and murder-for-hire — carry potential life sentences or the death penalty, Waide’s exposure as an accessory could be severe.
Waide is represented by Lawson, of True Guarnieri Ayer in Frankfort, Kentucky. The case is being prosecuted by Melton and Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Todd Bradbury. It is assigned to Judge Van Tatenhove, with Magistrate Judge Matthew A. Stinnett handling pretrial matters.
All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.