NEW YORK (CMC):

Two Guyana-born men were this week convicted in a United States Federal District Court in Brooklyn for killing four persons as part of a life insurance scam. They now face the death penalty.

The two men are Ronald Mallay, 61, and Richard James, 46. Prosecutors told the court Tuesday that Malley, an ex-postal worker, and James, an erstwhile insurance agent, orchestrated the poisoning and shooting deaths of four people since the early 1990s. Two of their victims lived in Queens, while the others lived in Guyana.

The jury found them guilty of killing Basdeo Somaipersaud in January 1998, in Smokey Oval Park in Queens, by giving him an overdose of alcohol and drugs. They also found them guilty of the murder of Hardeo Sewnanan, 35, in Guyana in 1999, who died from an ingestion of alcohol and ammonia.