Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Troy Phillip, 28, has been sentenced to 8 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty last month to attempted arson and burglary in two incidents in 2020 and 2021. The defendant also pleaded guilty to carrying an illegal gun that was found during a search by police in August 2021.

District Attorney Katz said, “Today’s sentence holds this defendant accountable for unlawfully entering a hotel and an apartment building on separate occasions and setting fires, and for carrying an illegal weapon. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured as a result of his actions.”

Phillip, of 129^th Street in South Ozone Park, Queens, pled guilty last month to attempted arson in the second degree, attempted criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and burglary in the third degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Karen Gopee. Today, Justice Gopee sentenced Phillip to 8 ½ years in prison, to be followed by five years’ post release supervision.

According to the charges, on January 28, 2020, around 4:50 in the afternoon, the defendant was inside the Hillside Hotel on Queens Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. Phillip is observed on video surveillance inside the stairwell and walking onto the second floor of the hotel and then throwing an object that was on fire onto the hallway floor. When the New York City Fire Department investigated at the scene, multiple empty bottles of rubbing alcohol and a match were recovered.

On July 24, 2021, the defendant was seen on surveillance video at an apartment building in Lefrak City where the mother of his daughter and the child live. Shortly after 12:30 p.m., the estranged girlfriend opened the door to her apartment and found the entrance engulfed in flames. Her daughter and mother were in the apartment at the time. No one was injured.

Continuing, according to Court records, on August 17, 2021, police apprehended the defendant on a Court-issued warrant and discovered a Taurus .22mm pistol along with 16 rounds of ammunition in a black satchel the defendant was carrying.

Assistant District Attorney Sean Murphy, of the DA’s Major Economic Crimes Bureau, prosecuted the case, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Mary Lowenburg, Bureau Chief, Catherine Kane, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief and Jonathan Scharf, Deputy Bureau Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Gerard Brave.