BRIARWOOD MAN CONVICTED OF MURDER IN BEATING DEATH OF 16 YEAR OLD
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today the conviction of a Briarwood man on charges of murdering a 16 year old youth by beating him with a baseball bat in an attack that occurred in April 1999.
District Attorney Brown identified the defendant at Thomas Hernandez, 21, of 135-22 Coolidge Avenue, Briarwood, New York. He was convicted after a five week trial before Supreme Court Justice Richard J. Buchter who will impose sentence on March 23, 20001. At the time of sentence the defendant faces a maximum penalty of 25 years to life in prison.
According to the testimony at trial on April 23, 1999 the defendant and three other young men attacked 16 year old Tony Lee on the street at 63rd Avenue and Alderton Street. The testimony revealed that one of the defendant's accomplices had been roughed up at a nearby party and said that the deceased was one of the people inside the house where it happened. The accomplice then saw the deceased on the street after he ran to get the defendant and his other friends. The defendant hit the deceased in the head several times with a baseball bat while two of the others hit him as well.
The three accomplices, two of whom were 15 and one of whom was 14 at the time of the crime all plead guilty to manslaughter. Two of their cases are sealed because of their ages. The third, the 14 year old, received a sentence of 2-6 years incarceration.
Assistant District Attorney Deborah Nathan of District Attorney Brown's Special Victims Bureau which is under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Marjory Fisher and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant Gregory L. Lasak, was in charge of the prosecution.