Tuesday, March 15, 2005

D.A. BROWN: QUEENS MAN ARRAIGNED ON RECKLESS MANSLAUGHTER AND OTHER CHARGES IN FATAL HIT AND RUN INCIDENT THAT CAUSED DEATH OF 76-YEAR-OLD MAN IN WOODSIDE; FACES UP TO 15 YEARS IN PRISON

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a Long Island City man has been arraigned on charges of second degree manslaughter and other offenses in a fatal death-by-auto incident in Woodside in which a 76-year-old man was struck and killed by a speeding car that left the scene.

District Attorney Brown said, “According to the charges, the defendant drove an automobile recklessly at high speed and struck the victim -- a devoted husband, father and grandfather -- causing his death, and then fled the scene, failing to report the incident to police.”

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Royce Quigua, 30, of 61-05 39th Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, a mechanic. The defendant has been charged with Manslaughter in the Second Degree, Criminally Negligent Homicide and Leaving the Scene Without Reporting As a Felony and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The District Attorney said that a criminal complaint charges that on March 13, 2005 at about 7 a.m. at the corner of 31st Avenue and 56th Street in Woodside, Queens the defendant recklessly caused the death of the victim, Donald Hennessy, 76, by driving a 1990 Mitsubishi sports car at a high rate of speed in excess of the speed limit and in the wrong lane of traffic on a two-way street and left the scene of the incident without reporting it to the police. The legal speed limit in city streets is 30 miles per hour.

District Attorney Brown said that the defendant surrendered at the New York City Police Department’s 114th Precinct and was arraigned earlier today before Queens Criminal Court Judge William Harrington who set bail of $75,000 and a return date of March 29, 2005.

Assistant District Attorney Neal J. Morse of the District Attorney’s Homicide Investigations Bureau is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter T. Reese, Bureau Chief, Peter J. McCormack III, Deputy Bureau Chief, and Richard B. Schaeffer, Senior Trial Attorney, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.

It should be noted that a criminal complaint is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.