MANHATTAN MAN SENTENCED TO 30 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER OF EX-GIRLFRIEND AND HER BROTHER

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today the sentencing of Ronald Smiley, 31, of 504 West 157th Street, Manhattan, on charges of attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon to 30 years in prison after a trial lasting one and a half weeks. He was sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron.

The District Attorney said, "The defendant assaulted and terrorized the mother of his child in front of that child. He viciously attacked her and her brother. He deserves to go to prison for a long time."

According to evidence at the trial, the defendant began following his former girlfriend, the mother of his child, around and threatening her when he realized she had begun to date again. He followed her into her mother’s home and phoned her over and over again to track her movements. When he could not find her at home he waited for her at the home of the babysitter who cared for their child and beat her up in front of her children telling her she wasn’t going to be pretty anymore. Later that day he turned up at a park where she regularly took her children to play and began threatening her. She called for her brother who was nearby and when he arrived, the defendant pulled a gun out of a bag and in a struggle over the gun shot them. He then fled to North Carolina where he was arrested on drug charges.

Assistant District Attorney Frank P. DeGaetano of the District Attorney's Special Victims Bureau, which is under the supervision of Bureau Chief Marjory D. Fisher and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Gregory L. Lasak, was the trial prosecutor.