‘John Dillinger Jr.’ suspected of several murders goes back to federal prison after South Side robbery, Maryland arrest

A suspected hitman once referred to by a homicide detective as “John Dillinger Jr.” is headed back to federal prison after his latest tangle with police following an armed robbery on the South Side and another arrest in Maryland.

Jason Korey, a felon long suspected in several murders, isn’t allowed to have guns. But the U.S. probation office said he had one and pointed it at a robbery victim in April. That means he’s in violation of his probation on a prior federal gun conviction from 2015.

U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti on Wednesday gave him another year and a day behind bars.

Korey, 41, of Baldwin Borough, has a “history of violence, assault, burglary and weapons possession,” the probation office said.

But he has proved to be an elusive target over the years. He was acquitted in two killings. In a third attempted murder, the charges were withdrawn. Federal prosecutors went after him three times. After a mistrial in 2015, Korey pleaded guilty later that year and went to prison for 6½ years.

The judge in that case, Conti, warned him that he if he doesn’t start obeying the law “your future will be in either state or federal prison.” She said he’d reached a point in his life of crime in which he had to now choose if he was going to be a criminal or a productive citizen.

He got out last year and seems to have made that choice.

In his latest case, Pittsburgh police said a man told them he’d been robbed at gunpoint at his house on April 24. He said the robber pointed a gun at his face and said, “Gimme the money.” The victim turned over $1,165. The robber fled.

The victim followed the robber in his car and saw him in an alley. He approached and said the suspect pulled his gun again. The robber said he knew the man as “Jay.” Police later identified him as Korey, whom they have dealt with numerous times.

Korey was also arrested in May in Ocean City, Maryland, where he was traveling and living with Amy Calabrese, who was also charged in connection with the South Side robbery. A search of their car turned up a digital scale and razor blade with cocaine residue.

Korey pleaded guilty in federal court in 2015 to a gun charge following a mistrial in which the jury deadlocked.

He’d gone on trial that May on charges of possession of a stolen gun and ammo in 2014. The case ended in a mistrial, and prosecutors offered him a plea deal. He took it.

It was a victory for Pittsburgh police and the ATF, who had been dogging Korey for years. One detective said Korey was as “close to the devil” as anyone he’d seen.

In 1999, a Common Pleas Court jury acquitted him in the 1998 murder of Joseph Brucker, 17, of Whitehall. A year later, a county judge acquitted him of the murder of William Kuhn III, 24, a South Side Slopes drug dealer. Police said at the time the murder was a contract killing.

In 2004, police charged Korey with attempted murder in a plot to kill a professional boxer. That case fell apart when the victim refused to testify.

The U.S. attorney’s office then stepped in, bringing a case against Korey for possession of the gun used to kill Kuhn. He was initially sentenced to more than 30 years in federal prison, but on appeal he got that term reduced to less than three years.

Federal prosecutors tried again in 2008, indicting Korey for the gun and drug evidence from the Kuhn murder. A federal judge threw out the case, saying three of the counts were too old and another was an example of “vindictive prosecution.”

In the 2015 case, police found a gun and ammo during a search of Korey’s mother’s house. He lived there with his girlfriend but argued that the gun was not his. ATF couldn’t find his prints or his DNA on it.

His lawyer said the gun belonged to another felon who helped Korey rob a drug dealer’s house.

Korey later admitted that the gun was his.