An ex-con will serve 17 years behind bars for serving as the driver in a beloved Brooklyn chef’s drive-by shooting murder — but the men who pulled the trigger remain on the loose almost seven years after the killing.
Marc Jean, 37, took a plea deal last month in the 2018 Crown Heights shooting death of Argenis Cabrera, 33, copping to a single count of attempted murder.
Cabrera was just steps from his home on Union St. near Troy Ave. when gunmen opened fire from a passing minivan, killing him and wounding a second man on July 3, 2018. The van crashed about half a block away near Schenectady Ave. and its occupants bolted for the subway station at Eastern Parkway three blocks away.
Murder victim Argenis Cabrera.
Jean, who’s identified in court documents as the driver, didn’t give up his accomplices as part of his negotiated plea deal, law enforcement sources said. He was initially charged with murder and other offenses.
“The family knows justice is just beginning for their son,” Assistant District Attorney Fabiola Maruffo told Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun Wednesday. “The shooters in this case are still free.”
Police questioned Jean a month after the killing but he denied involvement.
“I was not at a scene where someone was killed. I am married with kids. I have driven the van a while back a few times in the neighborhood. It was not this van,” he told detectives, according to court papers. “I don’t know whose car this is. My pay stubs and social security card could have been in that van because all types of frauds going around the neighborhood. If I did something you would have had me a long time ago.”
Cops investigate the scene where Argenis Cabrera was shot in the chest early July 3, 2018, on Union St. in Brooklyn. (Vic Nicastro for New York Daily News)
Jean was later arrested and convicted in an unrelated weapons case and sentenced to two years in prison in December 2021. Police charged him with Cabrera’s killing in May 2023 just before his scheduled release on parole.
Jean made no statements during the brief sentencing proceeding Wednesday.
“He was very apologetic to the family and he accepted responsibility,” his lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, told the Daily News.
Cabrera’s family declined comment as they left the courtroom.
In 2023, Cabrera’s mother, Maria Cabrera, told The News cops told her the killing was a case of mistaken identity.
“He was walking with a couple of people in front of our house and they started shooting,” she said.
Marc Jean during his sentencing at Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday. (Shawn Inglima / New York Daily News)
Cabrera’s family described him as a lovable “clown,” a father of two and a skilled chef who used to work in Long Island City.
“We used to call him a payaso [clown in Spanish] ’cause he made people laugh left and right,” the victim’s brother Johnathan Cabrera, 29, said after his slaying. “Whenever he cooked we ate everything…. He loved making soul food, mac and cheese, buffalo wings, anything we could eat while we hung out.”