A dogged drug trafficker turned hitman insisted he was innocent Monday, while a Brooklyn judge sentenced him to life in prison for 2019. contract murder of a real estate agent.

Antony Abreu, 36, faced a mandatory life sentence after a jury found him guilty in April. murder-for-hire charges Shot of Xin “Chris” Gu outside a karaoke bar in Queens in 2019.

“I am innocent. “I didn’t kill anyone,” Abreu told Judge Carol Bagley Amon on Monday. “Yes, I sold marijuana, but selling marijuana does not make me a murderer or a cruel person.”

Abreu insisted he had never seen Gu’s face before hearing and added: “I was never there, I never killed that man, I never killed anyone. “I am an innocent man who was sentenced to life imprisonment today.”

Gu’s death was ordered by his former boss and mentor. Manhattan developer Qing Ming “Allen” Yu A person who seeks revenge after his former protégé starts his own business and kidnaps a few customers on his way out.

Yu He gave the task to his nephew To form a kill team, Abreu was recruited by his accomplice Zhe Zhang to pull the trigger. Yu and Zhang were found guilty At a separate hearing in October.

Around 2:35 a.m. on February 12, 2019, Abreu executed Gu While waiting for an Uber at the Grand Slam KTV karaoke bar in Flushing. Prosecutors said the jury found that Abreu’s payment for the hit was a high-priced Richard Mille wristwatch worth more than $100,000.

“Mr. Abreu stalked and murdered a young, innocent man, shooting him dead at point-blank range in the back of the head,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Devon Lash said in a statement Monday.

Abreu is currently serving a 24-year prison sentence in Mississippi for federal cocaine distribution charges.

Amon rejected Abreu’s attorney Susan Kellman’s request to overturn the verdict and criticized Abreu’s “poor” testimony in his own defense at the hearing. “In the court’s view, he chose to take the stand to recklessly lie about his involvement in this incident.”

Kellman argued that “no reasonable juror could conclude that the fact that Zhang gave Mr. Abreu the watch the year after the murder indicates that the watch was payment for the murder.”

“I think I’ll save my words for the appeals court,” Kellman said at Monday’s hearing.