THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005
D.A. BROWN: QUEENS MOTORIST SENTENCED TO 8 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER OF POLICE OFFICER IN DRAGGING INCIDENT
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a St. Albans man who admitted last month that he intentionally attempted to murder a uniformed police officer by dragging him along the street after a routine traffic stop has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Darrin Wilkerson, 26, of 221-11 106th Avenue in Queens. The defendant pleaded guilty on August 12, 2005, to Attempted Murder in the Second Degree before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin-Brandt.
District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant’s response to being stopped by a police officer for a minor traffic infraction was cold and deliberate and could have resulted in seriously injuring or killing the officer who was simply doing his job. The defendant’s outright contempt for the police and the law in general was a threat to public safety. The prison sentence imposed on him today is more than warranted for such a violent crime.”
District Attorney Brown said that the defendant admitted that on the afternoon of June 3, 2005, at 116 Avenue and 208 Street in St. Albans, after being pulled over for operating his vehicle without wearing a seatbelt, he intentionally attempted to cause the death of the police officer by grabbing the officer’s arm and driving away with the officer pinned to the side of his car. The office was dragged along the pavement at speeds of up to thirty miles per hour before he managed to pull his arm free. The officer suffered injuries to his head and arm.
The defendant was arrested two days later at a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn, where police discovered him hiding.
Assistant District Attorney Maryam A. Lipkansky, of the District Attorney’s Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of James W. Evangelou, Bureau Chief, and Brad A. Leventhal, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Senior Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials James Clark Quinn and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials John H. Larsen.