Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Kevin Carroll, 39, has been convicted at trial of robbery and other charges for a vicious hate crime attack on a man waiting at the LIRR Jamaica train station in July 2020.

District Attorney Katz said, “Hate has no place in our borough. The defendant in this case attacked a man without provocation. The defendant yelled out homophobic slurs and insults and then knocked the victim out and stole his property. A jury weighed the evidence and found the defendant guilty at trial.”

Carroll, of 104^th Street in Manhattan, was found guilty of robbery in the second degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree, a hate crime. Following a two-week-long trial, a jury rendered its verdict yesterday. Queens Supreme Court Justice John Zoll, who presided at trial, set the defendant’s sentencing for February 15, 2022. Carroll faces up to 25 years-to-life in prison as a mandatory persistent felony offender. The defendant’s criminal history includes a 2000 conviction for attempted robbery of a 15-year-old, a 2003 conviction for attempted aggravated assault of a police officer who approached him as he panhandled in the subway. When the female officer asked him for identification, Carroll body slammed her onto the platform and tried to shove her onto the tracks as a train entered the station. The defendant also has two other convictions.

District Attorney Katz said that, according to trial testimony, on July 22, 2020, at approximately 7:20 p.m., the defendant approached the victim, a 40-year-old doctor, who was standing on the platform of the LIRR Jamaica Train Station and asked him for a dollar. The victim, who was wearing medical scrub pants, replied that he did not have a dollar. The defendant then became angry and began to threaten the man. Carroll threw a water bottle at him and then left. But moments later, the defendant returned telling the man that he found a dollar and threw it at him. At this point, Carroll yelled a homophobic slur about the victim’s attire and the doctor told him that he was gay.

Upon learning that the victim was gay, the DA said, the defendant became enraged, repeatedly referred to the victim by a homophobic slur and shouted to a man on the opposite platform that the victim was “worse than his girl.” Suddenly Carroll attacked the man – punching him in the face and knocking him to the platform surface where he lost consciousness. The defendant then took the victims’ cell phone along with his gym bag and fled the scene. Video surveillance at the station captured the defendant minutes before the attack as well as afterwards.

The victim sustained a lasting injury to his retina which has permanently affected his vision.

The defendant was arrested two days later on another matter and was identified by the arresting officer after viewing the surveillance video from the LIRR station.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Brovner, Bureau Chief of the DA’s Hate Crimes Bureau and Assistant District Attorney Serena Nguyen, of the Hate Crimes Bureau are prosecuting the case, under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials Pishoy Yacoub.