Press Release
QUEENS DEFENDANT CONVICTED AT TRIAL FOR RAPE OF HOUSEGUEST IN 2019
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Ahmed Shamim, 35, has been convicted at trial for the rape of a woman in Jackson Heights, Queens, in January 2019.
District Attorney Katz said, “The defendant violated the trust of a woman who was a guest in his home. After weighing all the evidence presented at trial, a jury found the defendant guilty. The Court is now slated to sentence him to a lengthy term of incarceration as a measure of justice for his crime.”
Shamim, of 75th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, was convicted of rape in the first degree yesterday afternoon following a two-week-long jury trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant. Sentencing was set for March 21, 2022, at which time Shamim faces up to 25 years in prison.
DA Katz said, according to trial records, on January 25, 2019, the defendant and the victim, a 25-year-old woman who moved to the United States from Bangladesh several weeks prior to attend college and was sharing a room in Shamim’s apartment with his niece, went out for her birthday. They returned to the apartment and the woman retired for the night. The victim was suddenly awakened by the defendant, who restrained her by holding her arms above her head and removed her pants. The defendant applied pressure to the woman’s neck and forcibly raped her.
Continuing, the police were called later that morning and the defendant was arrested at the residence.
The DA said after the attack the victim was taken to a local hospital for treatment of the physical injuries sustained during the rape and a forensic examination was conducted. DNA evidence recovered from the sexual assault kit administered to the victim matched for the defendant’s DNA profile.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Regan, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Eric C. Rosenbaum, Bureau Chief, Debra Lynn Pomodore and Brian Hughes, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.