Press Release

QUEENS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MANSLAUGHTER FOR STABBING TO DEATH SON-IN-LAW IN 2019

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Marco Ortiz, 48, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree for killing his son-in-law while the defendant’s daughter was in the hospital after giving birth to their second child. The defendant stabbed his daughter’s husband inside the home they all shared in Briarwood, Queens, on January 24, 2019.

District Attorney Katz said, “As jurors decided his fate, the defendant opted to plead guilty to manslaughter in the killing of his daughter’s husband in 2019. A family dispute should never end in bloodshed, but in this instance an argument between the two men escalated to violence and a tragic death. The defendant has admitted his guilt now and will be sentenced by the Court for his criminal actions.”

Ortiz of 139th Street in Briarwood, Queens pleaded guilty this morning before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth C. Holder. A jury was in the midst of deliberating following a two-week-long trial. Justice Holder set sentencing for March 8, 2022, at which time he indicated he will sentence Ortiz to 19 years in prison to be followed by five years’ post release supervision.

District Attorney Katz said that, according to the trial testimony, at approximately 8 p.m. on Thursday, January 24, 2019, the defendant argued with his daughter’s boyfriend Travis Ford. The verbal altercation escalated and the defendant slashed the 31-year-old victim with a knife in the face and stabbed him once in the stomach. The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital but he could not be saved.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Courtney Finnerty, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case, with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Erin Mullins, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter McCormack III and John W. Kosinski, Senior Deputy Chiefs, Karen Ross, Deputy Chief and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.   

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