MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2005

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D.A. BROWN: FIVE CONVICTED IN BIAS-RELATED ATTACK ON SIKH MAN IN RICHMOND HILL

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that five men charged with the vicious bias-related assault on a Sikh man in Richmond Hill, Queens, in July have been convicted of various charges following a non-jury trial before Acting Supreme Court Justice Seymour Rotker.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendants have all been found guilty to varying degrees of crimes ignited by hate that left an innocent man unconscious and seriously injured on the sidewalk. Crimes motivated by bias – particularly those involving violence – can never be tolerated. They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society. Justice has been done and the defendants will now be held accountable for their actions.”

The District Attorney identified the defendants as: (1) Salvatore Maceli, 26, a painter, (2) Nicholas Maceli, 22, a construction worker, and (3) Victor Cosentino, 58, an account manger, all of 31 Ethel Avenue in Valley Stream in Nassau County; (4) Ryan Meehan, 24, of 84-12 127th Avenue in Forest Hills, Queens, a sheet metal worker and (5) Terence Lyons, 53, of 1328 Post Avenue in Elmont in Nassau County, retired.

The District Attorney said that, following a five-week bench trial in Queens County Supreme Court, Justice Rotker today found Salvatore and Nicolas Maceli each guilty of Assault in the Second Degree, a Class D felony punishable by up to seven years in prison; Terence Lyons and Ryan Meehan each guilty of Aggravated Harassment in the Second Degree, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail; and Victor Cosentino guilty of Harassment in the Second Degree, a violation punishable by up to 15 days in jail. The defendants remain free on bail ranging from $35,000 to $50,000 pending their sentencing on December 22, 2005.

According to District Attorney Brown, defendants Nicholas and Salvatore Maceli are brothers and Victor Cosentino is their stepfather. Defendant Lyons is the uncle of Nicholas and Salvatore Maceli and defendant Meehan is allegedly Nicholas Maceli’s friend.

District Attorney Brown said that, according to trial testimony, between 5:00 and 5:45 p.m. on July 11, 2004,outside the Villa Russo Risorante, a Richmond Hill catering hall on 101st Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard, the defendants Meehan and Nicholas Maceli, and later joined by Cosentino and Lyons, taunted Rajinder Singh Khalsa, 50, and a companion, Gurcharan Singh, 51, both wearing turbans required by the Sikh religion, by mocking them and demanding that the two remove their turbans from their heads. The two Maceli brothers and others then repeatedly punched the victim Khalsa in the face, knocking him to the ground where they kicked him until he lost consciousness. Khalsa was later treated at a hospital for multiple contusions, abrasions, swelling and substantial pain to his eye and face. A CAT scan revealed that Khalsa had sustained multiple fractures to the left orbital bone, nasal bone, nasal septum and maxillary sinus.

The defendants were arrested as the result of a joint investigation by the District Attorney’s Gang Violence and Hate Crimes Bureau and the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney George J. Farrugia, Supervisor of the District Attorney’s Gang Violence and Hate Crimes Bureau (GVHC), and Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth D. Parke, Director of Juvenile Prosecutions, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Mariela Palomino Herring, GVHC Bureau Chief, Robert J. Hanophy, Deputy Bureau Chief, and Charles N. Walsh, Senior Trial Attorney, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials James Clark Quinn.