Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz today announced that a 31-year-old St. Albans man has been sentenced to 23 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the first degree for a road rage shooting that killed a 27-year-old off-duty correction officer in South Richmond Hill, Queens in September 2018.

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said, “The defendant pleaded guilty to this senseless shooting that killed a dedicated corrections officer. Our deepest sympathies go out to the family of the victim.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Gifford Hunter, 31, of Babylon Avenue in St. Albans, Queens. Hunter pleaded guilty in December 2019 to manslaughter in the first degree. Today Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise imposed a sentence of 23 years in prison, to be followed by 5 years’ post-release supervision.

District Attorney Katz said that, according to court records, at approximately 1:30 a.m. on September 14, 2018, the defendant, who was riding a motorcycle encountered the victim, off-duty correction officer Jonathan Narain, 27, who was driving his vehicle. Defendant Hunter pulled out a gun and fired one shot into Mr. Narain’s red Honda Accord which was stopped near a red-light signal at the intersection of 103^rd Avenue and 120^th Street.

Continuing, according to the charges, Mr. Narain, of Richmond Hill, was found at the scene of the shooting slumped over the steering wheel of his vehicle. He later died from the injuries at a nearby hospital.

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Buchter, Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Attorney’s Kew Gardens III Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of the Homicide Bureau, Brad A. Leventhal, Bureau Chief, Peter J. McCormack III, Senior Deputy Chief, John W. Kosinski and Kenneth M. Appelbaum, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of the Major Crimes Division Daniel A. Saunders.