Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Edwin Sarmiento, 31, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree for stabbing a 30-year-old woman to death in February 2020.

District Attorney Katz said, “The defendant has now admitted to the brutal slaying of a young woman. The victim was stabbed with at least two different knives and sustained multiple puncture wounds. At his next appearance, the Court will sentence the defendant to a lengthy term of incarceration for his actions.”

Sarmiento, of Van Cleef Street, in Corona, Queens, pleaded guilty today to manslaughter in the first degree. Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder set the defendant’s sentencing for March 25, 2022. Justice Holder indicated that he will sentence Sarmiento to 24 years in prison, to be followed by five years’ post release supervision.

District Attorney Katz said, around 4:10 a.m. on February 8, 2020, the defendant and Juliet Ximena Galindo Puentes argued inside the bedroom of the residence they shared. The heated exchange turned violent when Sarmiento grabbed a knife and stabbed the 30-year-old woman with it, numerous times. Sarmiento then went to the kitchen for an even bigger knife, broke down a door to access where the victim attempted to hide and continued to stab the victim repeatedly. Sarmiento then left the apartment. He was arrested a short time afterwards at a nearby gas station in blood-soaked clothes, carrying a bag filled with money, phones, passports and other belongings.

Emergency medical responders rushed Ms. Galindo Puentes to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Tara DiGregorio, Assistant Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Attorney’s Human Trafficking Bureau and formerly with the DA’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter J. McCormack III and John Kosinski, Senior Deputy Bureau Chiefs, Karen Ross, Deputy Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.