Wednesday, March 16, 2005

D.A. BROWN: QUEENS YOUTH CONVICTED OF MURDER IN VICIOUS KILLING OF CHINESE RESTAURANT DELIVERYMAN WHO WAS ROBBED AND FATALLY BLUDGEONED AND STABBED; FACES UP TO 50 YEARS TO LIFE IN PRISON

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that a Queens youth has been convicted of murder and other charges in the brutal slaying in February 2004 of a young Chinese food deliveryman who was robbed, beaten with a bat and a hammer and stabbed and whose lifeless body was dumped in a pond.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant has been found guilty by a jury of the vicious and brutal murder of a young man who worked in his family’s restaurant preparing meals and delivering take-out food orders. The victim, 18-year-old Huang Chen, was the hope and pride of the Chen family who have been shattered by their terrible loss. I hope that the Chen family, with whom I met this morning following the jury’s verdict, find some degree of solace in today’s conviction and in the knowledge that the defendant will be sent to prison for a long time as punishment for his actions.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Charles Bryant, 17, of 245-39 147th Drive in Rosedale, Queens. He was convicted of Murder in the Second Degree, Robbery in the First Degree and Tampering With Physical Evidence.

A jury of three women and nine men deliberated over three days before returning a verdict of guilty earlier today before Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Hanophy who indicated that he would impose sentence on the defendant on April 19, 2005. The defendant faces up to 50 years to life in prison.

The District Attorney said that according to the trial testimony sometime after 10 p.m. on Friday, February 13, 2004 at 168-24 127th Street in Rochdale Village, a housing development in South Jamaica, Queens, the defendant, and others placed a food order for a delivery to an apartment at 168-24 127th Street.

The defendant -- and two alleged accomplices –- attacked the victim, Huang Chen, 18, by beating him with a bat and a hammer and stabbing him in the upper torso with a knife during a robbery inside the residence.

After the fatal attack, the defendant disposed of physical evidence of the crime including blood-stained clothing and dumped the victim’s body in a pond in Brookville Park a few miles away.

One of the alleged accomplices, Defendant Nayquan Miller, 16, of 168-24 127th Avenue in Jamaica, Queens is being held without bail on murder charges pending trial.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Brad A. Leventhal, Deputy Chief, of the District Attorney’s Career Criminal Major Crime Bureau under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney James W. Evangelou, Bureau Chief, with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Rosemary Chao of the District Attorney’s Kew Gardens I Trial Bureau under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Robert J. Masters, Bureau Chief, Therese M. Lendino and Robin D. Leopold, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials James C. Quinn and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials John H. Larsen.