Results tagged “manslaughter”

The Queens woman found guilty of suffocating her abusive stepfather and cutting off his penis in 2007 was sentenced yesterday to five to 15 years in prison — the maximum sentence for the charge of second-degree manslaughter. Brigitte Harris, 29, was acquitted of murder charges last month, but found guilty of the lesser manslaughter charge after her lawyers argued she wasn't attempting to kill the victim, Eric Goodridge, but protect her nieces from a "pattern of repeated systemic sexual abuse" perpetrated against her since she was 3 years old.

A man convicted of killing his girlfriend apparently decided that the best thing to wear at his sentencing was "a T-shirt with his victim's picture and the words 'R.I.P. Love You Forever.'" Naturally, Gregory Morency's move didn't go over well with victim Claribel Hernandez's family—her brother yelled, "How dare you come in here wearing my sister on your chest! You are a punk, you took my sister....Not even hell would be good enough for you." Morency's lawyer told the Daily News, "Well, what can I say, he still loves her." Morency was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

NYPD Officer Alex Kelly has been indicted on vehicular manslaughter and DWI charges in connection with the late September accident that killed pedestrian Vionique Valnord as she tried to hail a cab. Of course, Kellly managed to postpone taking a blood alcohol test for over seven hours, so he scored a perfect zero on the test, which is going to make it hard for prosecutors to make the DWI rap stick.

Yesterday Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly acknowledged that it will be "impossible" for prosecutors to determine how drunk an off-duty cop was when he fatally ran over a Brooklyn woman Saturday night. The family of Vionique Valnord is outraged that officer Andrew Kelly was able to successfully postpone having his blood tested for alcohol for over seven hours after the accident, and the Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating whether other officers helped him sober up. When finally tested, Kelly scored a perfect zero on the test, making the DWI charges against him problematic.

The woman who killed her abusive father after strangling and castrating him in 2007 was acquitted of murder yesterday. However, Brigitte Harris was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, a verdict she immediately said she was happy with. The 28-year-old had told jurors that, after years of rape and physical abuse at her father's hands, she was just trying to prevent him from abusing his two young granddaughters (her nieces), but not kill him.

Amid allegations that his fellow cops helped "cover-up" his intoxication after fatally running over Vionique Valnord Saturday night, the lawyer for officer Andrew Kelly fiercely defended his client, who scored a perfect zero on his blood alcohol test, administered eight hours after the accident. Attorney Arthur Aidala told the Daily News, "To be crystal-clear, Andrew wasn't drunk. Andrew wasn't surprised by his blood-alcohol level. He knows what he did that day. He tried to save that woman. He got her breathing, and at one point, she opened her eyes. He's just sad that she's not breathing today."

Last November, Daryush Omar was arrested after crashing his SUV into a livery cab, killing driver Bessy Velasquez and passenger Panayiota Demetriou. He had run a red light at 31st Avenue in Astoria and t-boned the cab; police found his blood alcohol was 0.176, twice the legal limit. Yesterday, Omar, who has been held without bail, pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter, and will face sentencing of 3 1/2 to 10 years next month. Omar, a Long Island resident, was also found to be living in the country illegally and will be deported to Afghanistan after he serves his term. The Post reports that another murder case against Omar—in 2006, he allegedly told friends to beat up a man who simply asked for directions (the man died after being beat with a steel pipe)— was dropped because "two key witnesses vanished."

The 16-year-old who fatally struck a man waiting for a bus in Bensonhurst was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and speeding, according to the Daily News. Stanislaw Zak, 65, had been on Bay Ridge Parkway and 18th Avenue when a Mazda driven by Dervish Nivokazi apparently came speeding down the road. Nivokazi first hit a Toyota and then hit Zak, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Nivokazi, who was treated for minor injuries and only had a junior license, was driving without a licensed driver—junior license holders are explicitly prohibited from driving after 9 p.m. in NYC.

The case of the mugging victim who killed a man he thought mugged him—but was actually just a bystander—is now with the jury. In January 2008, Maurice Parks was mugged by a group of attackers, who also stabbed him. Parks, experienced in martial arts, managed to chase them off but then ran into a man he thought was part of the attack and plunged his own knife into him; Flonarza Byas, who was stabbed 15 times, died. During closing arguments, the Daily News reports that prosecutors described Parks as a "judge, jury and executioner," bent on seeking revenge, while defense lawyer Anthony Ricco said Byas tragically walked into "a very dangerous situation." Ricco also claimed Parks didn't intend to kill, especially since he was on the phone with 911 (audio); Ricco mocked, "I'm gonna commit intentional murder, but let me get the police on the phone first. Hello, 911 ... hold on, let me commit this intentional murder."

A Brooklyn teen killed another youth in a Mill Basin jet ski accident almost three years ago, then sped away without trying to help the victim, prosecuters argued in court yesterday. You may recall that Aristotle Plagianakos, who was 16 at the time, was arrested in connection with Paul Zaccaria's death in 2006. It took investigators a month to find Zaccaria's body in the water, and now Plagianakos is charged with manslaughter and trying to cover up the death by telling friends, "It wasn't us, if anybody asks."

Evan Potts is being held on $5 million bond after pleading not guilty to manslaughter charges after fatally striking 34-year-old Ian Sharinn with his Nissan Altima and then driving over the victim's body. The 22-year-old defendant's lawyer, Stanley Kopilow, said he would appeal the high bail—$500,000 if paid in cash—as he told the court yesterday, "This was a tragedy that was fueled by unreasonable anger on the part of the deceased and panic on behalf of my client."

Police officer Rafael Lora faces up to 15 years in prison after a judge found him guilty of second-degree manslaughter for a 2007 shooting. Lora was off-duty when he confronted a driver who crashed his minivan into other cars on a Bronx Street. Believing that Fermin Arzu was reaching for a gun—and claiming that Arzu hit him and that he was being dragged by the vehicle— Lora shot Arzu, who later died. The cop had opted for a bench trial, instead of a jury trial; his lawyer had said he "acted professionally and was justified on the night in question."

A Staten Island woman has been arrested in connection with the death of her 10-year-old son in Mariners Harbor. 30 year-old Melissa Sekulski was charged yesterday and is expected to be arraigned today on manslaughter charges in the death of her son, Jaquan Porter. Following a 911 call from someone inside the apartment Friday evening, the boy was found to be not breathing and later pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center. The Medical Examiner's office later determined that Porter died due to blunt trauma to the head.

Over a year after a seven-alarm fire took the lives of two firefighters at the former Deutsche Bank building, the Manhattan DA's office will only bring manslaughter charges against the subcontractor, according to the Daily News. And the city and state won't face charges, "although several agencies were supposed to ensure the Ground Zero building was safe." While a construction worker's smoking caused the fire, there were numerous safety violations, from the dismantled standpipe (which brings water up in case of fires), blocked exits, and a lack of inspections to make sure the dismantling was being handled carefully. The subcontractor, John Galt Corp., had no experience with projects of this scale (the building was being dismantled after contamination from the 9/11 attacks) and was essentially laundering "millions through various shell companies." A source told the News, "The problem with indicting anyone in the city is that the city itself has sovereign immunity," meaning "prosecutors would have to prove a city employee's actions directly caused the deaths." So, the city or state may not have researched John Galt Corp.'s creds, but it's no big deal!

A Brooklyn jury convicted Nixzaliz Santiago on manslaughter charges for the death of her 7-year-old daughter Nixzmary Brown.

A homeless Bronx teenager charged with killing her newborn child, and the woman who took in the teen is devastated. The Daily News reports that Esther Pastrana, 17, had been kicked out of a friend's Manhattan home, where a neighbor, who saw Pastrana "weeping in the hallway," called Lysdell Ocasio. Ocasio (pictured), who readily agreed to house the teen, repeatedly asked Pastrana if she was pregnant, but she denied it. On Saturday, Ocasio's husband found the teen on the bathroom floor, tried to revive the baby and called 911. While Pastrana said she dropped the baby, cops say the 5-pound boy was strangled. Ocasio was stunned, "The fact that she could have called out for help - 'Help me, I'm giving birth!' She could have told me, 'I'm having labor pains!'"

Jacob Chubalashvili was arraigned yesterday on charges including second-degree manslaughter for crashing into an Acura, killing its two passengers immediately in Forest Hills on Tuesday morning. The Queens DA's office released some of the 17-year-old unlicensed driver's statements:

[On the morning of August 5] Chubalashvili said, “I just took the car, I didn’t have permission to take it. I smoked some marijuana before I took the car... I remember taking the car, it’s a Mercedes and jetting down the road and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.”

Continue reading "Teen Driver Allegedly Asked, "How is the Mercedes?""

On Wednesday night, 15-year-old Keyanna Jones was stabbed to death by when a dispute over line cutting at a Queens bus stop.

As concerns over citywide construction-related fatalities grow, the Brooklyn DA's office has charged a site owner with manslaughter, after a worker died in a March trench collapse.

In the span of a few days, there have been two separate incidents of adults acting stupidly and leaving children either badly hurt or dead.

A man was "pulled into an argument over the NBA playoffs", eventually getting stabbed to death outside his cousin's house in Queens Village. Henry Frazier died at Mary Immaculate Hospital, and police believe Frazier may have started to altercation.

Yesterday, the father of the Columbia graduate student who died after running into traffic--while trying to flee a teen attacker--testified in Family Court yesterday.

The 14-year-old boy whose actions led to the death of a Columbia graduate student was arraigned in Family Court yesterday. An NYPD detective told the judge that Sheldon (whose last name is withheld due to his age) admitted to repeatedly punching 24-year-old Minghui Yu in the head "a couple times." But, according to Detective John Garvey, the boy also claimed "he attempted to grab Mr. Yu to keep him from going into traffic."

A 13-year-old boy was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter in the Friday night death of a Columbia graduate student. According to a Daily News source, the boy bragged to his 15-year-old friend before chasing Ming-Hui Yu, "Look what I do to this one."

John White is free on bail after being convicted of manslaughter, and yesterday called for the arrest of the father of the 17-year-old Long Island man he killed. His son Aaron filed a complaint with police after Daniel Cicciaro Sr. seemed to threaten his life. White was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two to four years for the death of Daniel Cicciaro Jr., who he shot in the head during an altercation in August 2006. The victim's father was apoplectic following the sentencing, which he deemed inappropriately light. In front of news cameras, Cicciaro Sr. went on a profanity-laced tirade. "Let's see what happens when Aaron White gets shot!" he yelled at one point.

A Long Island man raged at the sentence given to his son's killer, John White, saying, "Let's see what happens when Aaron White gets shot! Let's see what the laws are then!" Daniel Cicciaro Sr.'s implied threat prompted police to protect White's house in Miller Place.

Jurors in the harrowing Nixzmary Brown trial say they were divided over handing down a murder verdict, so instead they found Cesar Rodriguez guilty of first-degree manslaughter, as well as "endangering the welfare of the child and criminal possession of a weapon, including a belt used to beat Nixzmary."

A driver for a private garbage trucking company was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Police say that Auvryn Scarlett lost control of his truck on West 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues Tuesday night, fatally hitting a couple and injuring a man; they believe Scarlett had a seizure and note he recently stopped taking his seizure medication.

Jim Leyritz, who played with the Yankees, from 1990-1996 and then again in 1999 and 2000, was arrested early Friday morning after getting in a car accident in Broward County, Florida. Thursday was Leyritz's 44th birthday and he was presumably driving his Ford Expedition home early Friday morning when witnesses said they saw him run a red light. His car hit a Mitsubishi Montero driven by 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch. The woman was ejected from her car during the accident and died of her injuries after being taken to a hospital. Leyritz is being charged with DUI manslaughter and DUI property damage. He was released after posting an $11,000 bond.

Over the weekend, a jury found a black man guilty of second degree manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon in the August 2006 shooting of a 17-year-old on Long Island. The defendant, John White, grabbed a pistol when a group of teens (who were white) swarmed around his home. The teens were angry at White's son and in the standoff, White shot Daniel Cicciaro in the face.