Press Release
QUEENS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MANSLAUGHTER IN STABBING DEATH OF HIS WIFE
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Jawad Hussain, 60, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and assault for the January 2019 fatal stabbing of his wife and for injuring his daughter during the attack.
District Attorney Katz said, “In pleading guilty, the defendant has now admitted to the stabbing rampage that killed his wife. This brutal outburst also injured his daughter. A woman is dead and her family grieving and now the patriarch of the family faces a lengthy term of incarceration for his crime when the Court sentences him in the coming weeks.”
Hussain, of 69th Avenue in Fresh Meadows, Queens, pleaded guilty yesterday to manslaughter in the first degree and assault in the first degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth C. Holder. The defendant will be sentenced on March 29, 2022. Justice Holder indicated he will order Hussain to be incarcerated for 19 years, to be followed by five years’ post release supervision.
According to the charges, said DA Katz, at approximately 1:30 p.m., on January 15, 2019, at the family residence, the defendant attacked his wife Fatima Jawad, 44, and their 18-year-old daughter with a knife. Ms. Jawad was stabbed multiple times with at least two knives. She sustained approximately 46 stab wounds to her torso and extremities, suffering puncture wounds to her lung, liver, large and small intestines. The defendant’s daughter sustained deep knife cuts to her right hand and to her right leg. Despite her injuries, the young woman was able to call 911 for help. This young victim told the 911 dispatcher that her father had stabbed her mother. At that time, the defendant grabbed the phone and told the operator in sum and substance that he had trouble with his wife, and he just hurt her.
Continuing, when police arrived at the residence, the defendant was standing outside the apartment building holding two knives. He was taken into custody without incident.
The victims were rushed to an area hospital, but later that day Ms. Jawad was pronounced dead as a result of her extensive injuries. The couple’s daughter required numerous stitches to her wounds and underwent surgeries to lacerated tendons in her hand, enabling her to regain partial use of her fingers following months of physical therapy and the loss of full sensation in her hand.
Deputy Bureau Chief Karen Ross, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case, with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Xhulia Derhemi, under the supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of Major Crimes Daniel Saunders.