To those at Hot 97, the beloved and influential hip-hop radio station in New York, the man known as Paddy Duke was an upbeat and positive presence, working largely behind the scenes but earning frequent on-air shout-outs for more than 25 years. It was only in recent days, veterans of the station said, that they learned about a disturbing chapter in their co-worker’s past.
Duke, it turned out, was really Pasquale Raucci, who, as a teenager, was one of eight young men charged in the 1989 killing of Yusuf K. Hawkins, a Black 16-year-old, in Brooklyn. Hawkins had traveled one summer night to the Bensonhurst neighborhood to look at a used car with three friends, only to encounter a bat-wielding mob of some 30 white youths, one of whom shot him dead.
Hawkins’s murder, which, along with the Central Park jogger case, came to represent a brutal period of racism and violence in the city, is now the subject of a new HBO documentary, “Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn,” which led to the revelation.
“When people saw it, they was like, ‘What in the world!?’” said Ebro Darden, the face of Hot 97, on his morning show Monday. “At that moment 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.”
Raucci, now 50, was quickly fired. “After watching HBO’s ‘Storm over Brooklyn,’ Hot97 was shocked and terminated its relationship with Paddy Duke,” the station said in a statement. “Nothing is more important to Hot97 than our role as a trusted community resource. The march for social justice continues.”
The company, which is owned by Emmis Communications and MediaCo Holding Inc., sent an email to staffers that said no one “was aware of this situation until the airing of the HBO documentary,” and noted the immediate “adverse business impact and damage to our reputation.” The memo continued: “Now, more than ever, we serve as both a source of desperately needed information and entertainment, and any conflict in that relationship harms both our stations and the communities we serve.”
Still, many listeners, along with employees past and present, were left feeling betrayed and confused by the news, which came amid a summer of national uproar regarding unjust killings of Black people and a struggle over how best to move forward. On social media, many in the Hot 97 orbit expressed dismay and disbelief, though some said they had learned years ago about Raucci’s role in the case. “This is so sickening and sad!” wrote Ed Lover, a defining personality on the station in the mid-1990s.
Reached by phone on Monday, Raucci declined to comment.
On the morning show, Darden and his co-hosts, Laura Stylez and Peter Rosenberg, said that Raucci had predated them at the station, having been there for more than 25 years, most recently in the production department, recording and editing commercials. They said they had been unaware of Raucci’s real name, though Darden said he’d discussed the killing once with Raucci.
“He told me he got swept up in the Yusuf Hawkins situation. He also told me he had nothing to do with it,” Darden said, recalling a conversation that he said occurred eight to 10 years ago. “What am I going to say to a guy I’m working with — ‘I don’t believe you’?”
Raucci, who was 19 at the time of the attack on Hawkins, was one of eight young men charged in the crime, and faced trial for second-degree murder, manslaughter, discrimination, assault, rioting and other crimes. Prosecutors argued that the white teenagers mistakenly believed Hawkins had been dating a girl in the largely Italian-American neighborhood. In the documentary footage, Raucci, diminutive in a baseball hat and with the beginnings of a mustache, is seen being questioned by the police, telling them he was near the back of the pack of rampaging kids.
In 1991, Raucci was convicted of rioting, illegal imprisonment, menacing and weapons possession, while being acquitted of murder, manslaughter and discrimination. But a judge threw out the felony convictions, citing insufficient evidence, sentencing him to probation and community service for possession of a bat as a weapon. Joseph Fama, the gunman, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 32 years to life in prison, while others were found guilty of lesser crimes.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said at the time that Hawkins “did not get justice,” calling it “a continuing outrage how this case has dissipated into verdicts that are more compatible with traffic violations than murder.”
It was only a few years later, in 1994, that Raucci landed a producer job at Hot 97 (WQHT-FM, 97.1), which was in the midst of transitioning to hip-hop full-time, according to his LinkedIn page.
Behind now-legendary D.J.s and hosts like Funkmaster Flex and Angie Martinez, the upstart station became inseparable from the commercial rise of East Coast rap, including the careers of the Notorious B.I.G. and Jay-Z. As Paddy Duke, Raucci worked closely with Martinez, even appearing in the music video for her 2001 rap single “Dem Thangs.” Martinez, now a host at the rival station Power 105.1, declined to comment through her representatives.
Executives at Hot 97, Emmis and MediaCo also declined to comment further, citing a policy not to discuss personnel matters.
“It was out of our control, but we apologize,” Darden said on-air following Raucci’s firing, which was announced 31 years to the day after Hawkins’s death. “We inherited something that we have to, as a team, deal with the brunt of. That’s just what it is.”
Rosenberg added on Twitter, “People inside and outside the building are rightfully upset and disappointed. We all are. We will continue to address this well beyond today.”
Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.
