Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Orlando Plummer, 47, has been convicted of attempted murder for shooting a 44-year-old pedestrian in the stomach and robbing him of his backpack on the Horace Harding Expressway in Corona, Queens. The defendant followed the victim, who years earlier had dated the mother of the defendant’s child, for nearly an hour before accosting him in June 2020.

District Attorney Katz said, “This defendant shot an innocent man following a violent robbery in broad daylight, leaving him clinging to life. There is no place for such senseless and brutal acts in Queens County. Following a two-week trial, the defendant has been convicted of attempted murder and he faces a significant prison term as punishment for his actions.”

Plummer, of Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood, Queens was convicted yesterday after a two-week trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice John Zoll. The defendant was found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Justice Zoll set sentencing for September 6, 2022. The defendant faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

District Attorney Katz said, according to trial testimony, at approximately 4:00 p.m. on June 14, 2020, near the intersection of Horace Harding Expressway and Calloway Street, the defendant confronted the victim McAntoine Valery after following him for approximately fifty minutes as he traveled from Forest Hills to Corona.  The defendant was accompanied by two accomplices who drove in a silver Mitsubishi vehicle. The masked defendant and the two others approached the victim and accosted him punching him repeatedly. The defendant hit the victim on the head with a hard object and directed his confederates to take the victim’s backpack. The defendant shot the victim once in the stomach, took the victim’s backpack, and then left the scene on foot.

The victim was taken to a local hospital where he required surgery and 36 staples to treat his extensive injuries which included gunshot entry and exit wounds on his abdomen and back and internal organ damage.

Continuing, according to court testimony, video surveillance footage of the defendant near the scene of the incident and earlier that day unmasked in the same clothing led detectives to his identification.

Assistant District Attorney Eric Weinstein, of the Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau, prosecuted the case, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Shawn Clark, Bureau Chief, and Michael Whitney, Deputy Bureau Chief, under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of the Major Crimes Division Daniel A. Saunders.