LOCKPORT — A Falls man, facing a second trial on murder, robbery and weapons charges, has pleaded guilty.
In a deal with Niagara County prosecutors, Gabriel T. Moyer, 22, agreed to plead guilty to a single count of first-degree manslaughter. Niagara County Court Judge John Ottaviano agreed to sentence Moyer to a prison term of no more than 18 to 22 years as part of the deal.
He’ll face sentencing on June 29.
Moyer had previously rejected a plea offer from prosecutors after his first trial, in July 2024, ended in a mistrial. The jury hearing that case reported that they could only reach a verdict on two of the four charges against him.
First Assistant District Attorney Doreen Hoffmann, the lead prosecutor on the case, did not reveal the terms of the December 2024 plea offer, saying only that Moyer had “rejected” it. His plea on Monday came as a group of potential jurors waited in the Niagara County courthouse for jury selection to begin for his retrial.
The jurors in Moyer’s first trial, who deliberated for roughly three days, found him not guilty on charges of second-degree felony murder and first-degree robbery, but said they could not reach a unanimous verdict on charges of second-degree intentional murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
Moyer was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of second-degree murder, and single counts of first-degree robbery and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the June 2022 murder of Keith Agee. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Falls Police patrol officers said they were called to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center at around 11:15 p.m. June 4, 2022, after a man suffering from a gunshot wound to the head was brought to ER 1 in a private vehicle. The victim, Agee, 26, of the Falls, was stabilized and transported to the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo.
The next day, Agee died as a result of his wound.
Falls Police Criminal Investigation Division (CID) detectives said they were able to determine that Agee had been sitting in the passenger seat of a car in the 2400 block of LaSalle Avenue when an “unknown shooter” walked up and shot him through an open window.
Officers and detectives, assisted by a K-9 unit from the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office, searched the area around the crime scene and located at least one live bullet in a patch of grass near the roadway.
Five days later, Moyer was located in an Amherst motel by members of the U.S. Marshals Task Force and taken into custody. Law enforcement sources have told the Gazette that a dispute over a marijuana deal may have triggered the killing.