Press Release
QUEENS MAN SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR MANSLAUGHTER IN HIGH-SPEED HIT AND RUN THAT KILLED 56-YEAR-OLD WORKER
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz today announced that David Garcia, 29, has been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for the July 2019 hit and run death of a Dunkin’ employee that took place in Woodhaven Boulevard.
District Attorney Katz said, “The defendant’s blatant disregard of the rules of the road resulted in a family’s tragic loss of a hardworking husband and father. The sentence imposed today by the court brings a measure of justice and punishes this defendant for his selfish choices while driving on the streets of Queens County.”
Garcia, of 97th Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens, pleaded guilty on May 20, 2021, to manslaughter in the second degree before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Karen Gopee. Today, Justice Gopee imposed the indeterminate term of 3 1/3 to 10 years in prison.
According to the charges, DA Katz said, on July 25, 2019 at approximately 5:00 a.m., the defendant was heading southbound on Woodhaven Boulevard driving a 2019 black BMW. The defendant, who was speeding and at one point hit speeds as high as 92 mph, drove through the intersection at 91st Avenue as the light turned red.
The victim, Mr. Sivananaintha Perumal, 56, on his way to his job at Dunkin’, walked across Woodhaven Boulevard just as the defendant approached the intersection. The impact killed Mr. Perumal. Garcia fled the scene but was apprehended two weeks later.
Assistant District Attorney Laura Dorfman prosecuted the case, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney John W. Kosinski, Deputy Bureau Chief of the Homicide Bureau, and under the overall supervision of Pishoy Yacoub, Executive Assistant District Attorney of the Supreme Court Trials Division.