Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Ramon Castro, 56, has been sentenced to 8 years in prison for assault as a hate crime for a July 2021 incident near a Flushing, Queens subway station where he slashed a man in the face after using racial and homophobic slurs.

District Attorney Katz said, “Hate-motivated attacks will never be tolerated in Queens County, where we pride ourselves on our rich cultural diversity. In pleading guilty earlier this month, the defendant accepted responsibility for violently assaulting a man based on his appearance and he has now been sentenced to prison as punishment for his criminal actions.”

Castro, of Plimpton Avenue in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to charges of assault in the first degree and assault in the second degree as a hate crime earlier this month. Today Queens Supreme Court Justice Toni Cimino sentenced the defendant to 8 years in prison to be followed by 5 years of post-release supervision.

District Attorney Katz said that, at approximately 3 a.m. on July 6, 2021, the defendant approached his victim, a 34-year-old man who was standing near a taco stand at the intersection of 77^th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, Queens. The defendant yelled “I hate Latinos and f—-t people” then cut the victim on his left cheek with a sharp object and fled from the scene on the subway.

The victim required numerous stitches to treat his facial wound.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Brovner, Bureau Chief of the Hate Crimes Bureau, is prosecuting the case under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of the Trial Division Pishoy Yacoub.

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