A Brooklyn man was charged in connection with a double homicide on Wednesday, nearly a month after the victims were found fatally shot inside a business in Dongan Hills, Staten Island, police said.
Ricky Dennis, 32, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the Jan. 24 shooting that killed Michael Genovese, 57 of Edgewater, New Jersey, and a 52-year-old man, who was not identified.
Both men were inside a commercial loan business on Buel Avenue, where Universal Merchant Funding is located, at 6:15 p.m. when a masked Dennis allegedly walked in and shot them in a backroom, cops said.
Police first questioned Dennis in January, according to a police source.
“We believe one or two of these males were purposely targeted by the shooter,” Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce had said last month. “Each male was shot three times at close range.”
Boyce said there weren’t any organized crime connections to the shootings. The double homicide was the city’s first of 2017.
It was not immediately clear what Dennis’ connection was to either victim.
– With Nicole Brown and Newsday
