After HBO released "Storm Over Brooklyn", a documentary that gives insight on the 1989 Yusuf Hawkins murder, long time Hot 97 employee Paddy Duke also known as Pasquale Raucci has been fired for involvement with the incident.
Monday morning, Ebro, Laura Styles and Peter Rosenberg of "Ebro In The Morning" discussed their opinions of the documentary considering people are side eyeing the radio station, wondering if they've known of Paddy Dukes connection, upon his hire in the early 90's.
During the morning show, Ebro admits to knowing of Paddy Dukes involvement of the murder.
"He told me that he got swept up in the Yusef Hawkins situation. He also told me he didn’t have nothing to do with it. This was — it had to have been more than 8, 10 years ago. I didn’t know that he had a misdemeanor ’cause he did get charged with a misdemeanor and I didn’t know that his record had been expunged." says Ebro.
Ebro added, “Based on what I know about the NYPD, neighborhoods getting swept up around a murder, that’s normal procedure, especially in the late 80s and 90s. If you was outside, if you were near the park, if you were anywhere around, you were getting swept up."
Paddy Duke was a part of an Italian mob in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn who attacked, shot and killed 16 year old Yusuf Hawkins. Paddy Duke was found not guilty of charges, paid a $200 and had to complete community service.
By the time the documentary was released last week, apparently none of the HOT 97 staff were aware of Duke's involvement or that there was even a documentary set to be released.
“Behind the scenes, corporate started to go to work to figure out who knew what, when Paddy was hired and what was going to be the response because this wasn’t just going to be allowed to fly. The realization is that this couldn’t be swept under the rug, obviously, so he’s been fired.” says Ebro.
Ebro has also issued an apology on-air which said, "On behalf of our team at Ebro In The Morning, we apologize that this is even happening. It was out of our control, but we apologize and we’re here now. We’ve inherited something that we have to, as a team, deal with the brunt of.”
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