Gets 20 Years For Forest Hills Slay
The Massachusetts man who admitted to killing a Forest Hills resident whom he had met online in the victim’s apartment in June 2009 is spending the next two decades behind bars, law enforcement sources said.
Alexys Fermaintt, 33, of Wolcott Street in Holyoke, Mass. was sentenced last Friday, Aug. 3, by Queens County Supreme Court Justice Gregory L. Lasak to 20 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of 38-year-old Michael Pecora of 68th Avenue in Forest Hills.
Fermaintt pled guilty to a first-degree manslaughter charge on June 19, according to Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown.
“The sentence imposed today by the court hopefully will provide a measure of solace to the victim’s family by allowing them to know that justice has been served,” Brown said in a statement last Friday, “and that the person responsible for the brutal attack on their loved one will serve a lengthy prison sentence.
According to authorities, the bloodshed took place just after midnight on June 17, 2009, inside Pecora’s apartment on 65th Avenue between Queens and Yellowstone boulevards.
Based on information obtained by police during their investigation, it was determined that Fermaintt and Pecora-who had made arrangements through a website to meet that evening-became embroiled in an argument.
The dispute reportedly turned violent when Fermaintt stabbed Pecora multiple times about the body. Law enforcement sources said he then took the victim’s laptop computer, cell phone and watch, then fled from the scene.
Later on June 17, officers from the 112th Precinct found Pecora’s body in the apartment while responding to a 911 call at the location. Paramedics declared the victim dead.
Police tracked down Fermaintt in his home city of Holyoke, Mass. the day after the fatal stabbing; he reportedly confessed to the crime to detectives thereafter.
The 112th Precinct Detective Squad and the NYPD Queens Homicide Squad conducted the investigation.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Shawn Clark of the D.A.’s Homicide Trials Bureau, under the direction of Assistant District Attorneys Brad A. Leventhal, bureau chief, and Jack Warsawsky, deputy bureau chief.
