Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Jorge Serrano, 30, has been sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison for striking and killing a 19-year-old man riding a dirt bike on the Long Island Expressway in September 2021. The defendant pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in Queens Supreme Court last month.

District Attorney Katz said, “In pleading guilty last month, the defendant admitted to causing the tragic death of a fellow motorist on a Queens highway. Rules of the road are not mere suggestions, but laws that exist to help keep everyone on the road safe. The defendant has now been held to account for not abiding by these laws and sentenced by the Court for his actions.”

Serrano, of Torrington, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide before Justice Ira Margulis on September 16, 2022. Today, Justice Margulis sentenced the defendant to an indeterminate term of 4 to 12 years for aggravated vehicular homicide and a concurrent sentence of 2 1/3 to 7 years for vehicular assault in the first degree.

According to Court records, in the early morning hours of September 11, 2021, Serrano was driving westbound on the Long Island Expressway when he struck a moped and a dirt bike also headed westbound. After striking the dirt bike, the defendant’s vehicle dragged the victim Edwin Puma approximately 100 yards on the highway causing his death.  Serrano then drove away from the scene of the accident.

Additionally, a second victim – a 23-year-old man – who was the operator of the moped was taken to a Queens hospital for treatment of a broken left leg.

DA Katz said after the collision, police officers found the defendant and his vehicle, approximately two miles from the scene of the crash, partially parked on the curb and partially in the middle of the crosswalk at Maspeth Avenue and 61^st Street. At the time of his arrest, Serrano’s blood ethanol level was 0.16 which is two times the legal limit. Department of Motor Vehicles records showed the defendant was driving without a valid license.

Assistant District Attorney Edward White, of the DA’s Felony Trials Bureau II, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Mark Osnowitz, Bureau Chief, Rosemary Chao, Deputy Chief and Charissa Ilardi, Unit Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for the Supreme Court Trial Division Pishoy B. Yacoub.