Shotgun Blasts Killed One, Disabled Another
An ex-fugitive from Jamaica featured on the television program America’s Most Wanted has been convicted of murder and attempted murder, among other charges, in the midnight shooting of two local men in May 2002 and faces up to 50 years to life in prison, it was announced.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown identified the defendant as Danny Williams, 34, of Jamaica. He was convicted last Wednesday, Jan. 26, of second-degree murder, seconddegree attempted murder and firstdegree assault following a jury trial that began on Jan. 10. Queens Supreme Court Justice Gregory L. Lasak, who presided at trial, set sentencing for Feb. 29; Williams faces up to 50 years to life behind bars.
“[Williams] may have delayed justice but he did not escape justice,” said Brown in a statement. “He has now been held accountable for his violent crimes and faces the real prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.”
According to trial testimony, Williams-armed with a shotgun- and a co-defendant, Reginald Artis, who was 21 at the time and armed with a handgun, approached Roshawn Tate, 22, and a 21-year-old man just after midnight on May 28, 2002, in front of a location on 148th Street in Jamaica. Williams and Artis reportedly fired their weapons in the direction of the two victims, both of whom were hit by discharges from the shotgun.
Law enforcement sources said Williams and Artis had been robbed earlier in the day and they believed that Tate and the 21-year-old victim, while not the robbers, somehow had been involved. Both defendants then fled the scene.
Tate died at the scene as a result of being hit several times in the back as he ran for his life and the 21-yearold man suffered multiple injuries to his torso and legs, including nerve damage to his legs that has resulted in him being permanently disabled.
Artis was arrested on Oct. 10, 2003, and held without bail. On Apr. 11, 2006, he pled guilty to seconddegree criminal possession of a weapon and was sentenced on Jan. 7, 2008, to nine years in state prison.
Williams was arrested on July 19, 2010, in Jackson, N.J., by the NYPD Fugitive Task Force and local police following two appearances on America’s Most Wanted. He and Artis had been indicted by a Queens County grand jury on July 22, 2004.
Assistant District Attorney John W. Kosinski, chief of the District Attorney’s Vehicular Homicide Unit, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Brad A. Leventhal, chief of the District Attorney’s Homicide Trials Bureau, and Jack Warsawsky, deputy bureau chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.
