By Rich Bockmann
An Ozone Park man who shot at a marked police car during a one-hour rampage in 2010 was sentenced Monday to 30 years to life in prison, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said this week.
Urban Fermin, 33, received the sentence after a jury found him guilty earlier this month on a long list of charges, including attempted murder and attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, Brown said.
“This defendant’s brazen crime spree came to a halt, thanks to the efforts of police officers who once again put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public,” the DA said. “The lengthy sentence imposed today is more than justified to punish this defendant and to protect society.”
According to the charges, Brown said, Fermin and his accomplice, 25-year-old Darius Lowery, were spotted by police sitting in a white Ford Focus that had been stolen from outside a St. Albans home earlier in the morning.
The two men took off when the police tried to approach the car and sped away, leading the officers on a high-speed chase through three different precincts and at times driving the wrong way down one-way streets, Brown said.
When the car turned onto Sutphin Boulevard, Lowery reached out the passenger window and fired eight shots from a black pistol at the pursuing police, Brown said. Neither of the officers was hit.
The two suspects jumped out of the moving car on 153rd Street and officers opened fire when they saw Lowery reach in his waistband for what appeared to be a gun, but neither he nor Fermin was hit, Brown said.
Fermin was arrested at the scene of the crash, and when police looked inside the car they found batteries, cash, a digital camera, jewelry, a gaming console and a flat-screen TV the two men had taken from a house during an armed robbery earlier in the day, Brown said.
Lowery was arrested about 12 hours later at his home.
After a five-week trial, a jury convicted Fermin March 4 on charges of attempted murder, reckless endangerment, attempted assault, attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, burglary, robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, unauthorized use of a vehicle and unlawful fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle.
Justice Kenneth Holder sentenced him Monday to 30 years in prison. Lowery was convicted March 6 on the same charges, Brown said, and was scheduled for sentencing March 28.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
