Huntington “Murder for Hire” Multiple Arrests

By Rupert Deedes

A murder-for-hire plot has led to the arrest an unlicensed Huntington “Dentist” and two other Huntington residents.

The case, which stretches back to a murder in the summer of 2022, was a contract killing meant to silence a whistleblower, according to prosecutors and police.

On August 2, 2022, around 1:18AM, the Suffolk County police responded to a 911 call reporting shots fired at a basement apartment in Huntington. 

Officers found 23‑year‑old Byron Martinez lying in the entrance to the home with a gunshot wound to his upper back. He was pronounced dead at the scene. 

The residence, which Martinez shared with his mother, became a tightly controlled crime scene; investigators recovered shell casings and a black drawstring bag containing a cartridge near the area where he was shot.

For some time, the shooting was publicly described as an unsolved homicide, with limited details released as detectives worked on leads. Behind the scenes, however, investigators were building a narrative that the killing was not random but connected to a dispute over an illegal dental practice operating in the community.

According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the story begins months earlier, when Martinez’s mother sought dental treatment from a 56‑year‑old Huntington "Dentist" Yolani Mejia Carranza.

Prosecutors say Mejia Carranza was practicing dentistry at her Heckscher Avenue, Huntington address without a license. And that her dental "treatments" left patients with serious injuries and complications that would cost thousands of dollars to correct.

Martinez’s mother demanded her money back and told Mejia Carranza that her son had recorded video of the unlicensed procedures, evidence they were prepared to bring to law enforcement if she refused to reimburse them.

Rather than risk being exposed, Mejia Carranza decided to murder her former patients.

She contacted Huntington resident Aldo Esmizadeh, asking whether he knew anyone who could “hurt” people. Esmizadeh then put her in touch with 35‑year‑old Daniel Kersey, who allegedly agreed in late July 2022 to threaten and physically harm Martinez and his mother in exchange for payment.

Prosecutors say Mejia Carranza and Esmizadeh surveilled the basement apartment where the family lived and supplied Kersey with the location information.

When Kersey did not move fast enough, Mejia-Carranza allegedly escalated the arrangement, demanding that both Martinez and his mother be killed and refusing to pay until the murders were carried out. 

On August 2, 2022, Martinez was shot dead at his apartment doorway in Huntington, while his mother, the second alleged target, survived.

Last week, Suffolk District Attorney Raymond Tierney announced that all three Huntington residents - Mejia Carranza, Kersey, and Esmizadeh - had been indicted in connection with the murder.

Mejia Carranza and Kersey face counts of first‑degree murder and related offenses, while Esmizadeh is charged with conspiracy based on his alleged role in arranging the murder‑for‑hire.

Kersey is also separately criminally-charged in an unrelated "sex‑trafficking" case in which he allegedly forced a drug addicted woman into prostitution.