Two people entered guilty pleas in Queens Criminal Court on Tuesday to charges that they attacked a nonprofit’s director with acid on a Long Island City street back in 2015 in an attempt to cover up an embezzlement scheme.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said that Bronx resident Kim Williams, 49, and Jerry Mohammed, 35, of Troy, New York pleaded guilty on Dec. 18 to first-degree assault. Queens Supreme Court Justice Ira Margulis indicated at the hearing that he would sentence them on Jan. 17, 2019 to serve 17-year prison sentences.
According to Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, Williams recruited Mohammed to throw acid on Reverend Dr. Alexandra Dyer, the executive director of Hospital Audiences Inc. based on Skillman Avenue in Long Island City, on the night of Aug. 19, 2015.
Williams had worked for Hospital Audiences as an accountant, and according to Brown, she hatched the acid attack plot as part of an effort to cover up her theft of more than $750,000 from the nonprofit, which provides disabled individuals with access to the fine arts.
“In pleading guilty, the former employee now admits to stealing from an organization that used its funds to help those in need. The two defendants together plotted to take grave steps to conceal this crime. The duo jointly conspired to inflict bodily harm to an innocent woman, the organization’s director, who was looking into the missing funds. As a result of the acid attack, the victim suffered pain and disfiguring injuries to her face and body. At sentencing the two defendants will face a long term of incarceration for their criminal actions.”
Prosecutors said Williams committed the theft between 2013 and 2015, pocketing $600,000 of the funds for herself and providing $150,000 to a close friend.
Dyer had caught on to the theft and launched her own investigation. After learning of the probe, prosecutors said, Williams brought in Mohammed to attack Dyer in an effort to stop her from digging any further.
Shortly after exiting the Skillman Avenue office building on Aug. 19, 2015, Dyer was approached by Mohammed, who threw a caustic substance at her and fled the scene. Dyer suffered extensive, severe burns to her face and other parts of the body, Brown said, which required hospitalization and several surgical procedures.
Williams and Mohammed were arrested in April 2016 for the acid attack.
