A Manhattan man convicted of shooting his neighbor, her friend and her pit bull to death in an ongoing dispute over barking dogs was sentenced to life in prison without parole, officials said Wednesday.
In December, a Manhattan jury found Lenue Moore, 34, guilty of first- and second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated criminal contempt and aggravated cruelty to animals for carrying out his revenge-filled plot against his dog-owning Washington Heights neighbor.
Months before the fatal Sept. 2023 shooting, Moore tried to push his way into his neighbor Jacqueline Billini’s apartment, breaking her arm in the process, court documents show.
But a subsequent order of protection didn’t stop him from lying in wait as she walked one of her three dogs with a friend at the corner of W. 165th St. and Edgecomb Ave., where Moore opened fire on Billini, her friend, Levaughn Harvin, and Billini’s dog, Zeus, as Harvin’s two children looked on in horror.
Billini, 57, was shot in the head. Harvin, 42, was shot in the neck. The dog was shot in the back.
“In response to Lenue Moore’s brutal and escalating conduct, Jacqueline Billini did what we ask every New Yorker to do: she came forward to report violence so that we can pursue accountability,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “Tragically, her efforts were met with devastating consequences when Moore devised a scheme to target her, ambushing and killing Ms. Billini, her friend Levaughn Harvin, and her pet.”
“This senseless act of retaliation left two families and an entire community grieving, including Mr. Harvin’s children, who witnessed the unimaginable,” Bragg said.
Moore and Billini lived in the same W. 163rd St. apartment in Washington Heights, where Moore carried on a years-long feud against his neighbor over her barking dogs.
Relatives said Billini had even asked the building’s management to move her to another apartment to get her away from her belligerent neighbor.
“She asked to get moved (away) from that motherf—er,” Billini’s brother, Jose Billini, said last year. “She asked to be moved three times.”
Then things got worse, with Moore pushing in Billini’s door, breaking her arm and swinging a hammer in the process. Two of Billini’s relatives were hit with the hammer, but neither suffered serious injuries, prosecutors said.
Moore was charged with burglary and assault but released after a Manhattan judge set his bail at a $5,000 bond.
In the days leading up to the shooting, Moore monitored Billin’s whereabouts using Ring camera footage, Bragg said.
After the shooting, Moore fled and got on a bus. Days later, the NYPD tracked him to an apartment in Queens. They didn’t find him there, but recovered the firearm used in the murder.
A short time later, cops tracked Moore to an apartment in Brooklyn, where he was found hiding under a bed, and placed him under arrest.
Billini worked as an analyst for the state court system in the Bronx and was close to retirement when Moore gunned her down, relatives said.
Harvin, who also lived in Washington Heights, had been accompanying Billini on her walks with Zeus for the two or three weeks before the killings as an informal bodyguard, according to friends and family.