Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Kevin Carroll, 39, has been convicted at trial on robbery and other charges for a “vicious hate crime” attack on a man waiting at the LIRR Jamaica train station in July 2020.
Carroll, of 104th Street in Manhattan, was found guilty of robbery and aggravated harassment as a hate crime, Katz announced Friday, Jan. 21. Following a two-week-long trial, the jury rendered its verdict Thursday, Jan. 20 before Queens Supreme Court Justice John Zoll, who set Carroll’s sentencing for Feb. 15. Carroll faces up to 25 years to life in prison as a mandatory persistent felony offender.
Carroll’s criminal history includes a 2000 conviction for attempted robbery of a 15-year-old and a 2003 conviction for attempted aggravated assault of a police officer who approached him as he panhandled in the subway. When the female officer asked him for identification, Carroll body-slammed her onto the platform and tried to shove her onto the tracks as a train entered the station. The defendant also has two other convictions, according to the DA’s office.
According to trial testimony, on July 22, 2020, Carroll approached the victim, a 40-year-old doctor on the platform of the LIRR Jamaica Train Station and asked him for a dollar. The victim, who was wearing medical scrub pants, replied that he did not have a dollar. Carroll then became angry and began to threaten the man.
Carroll threw a water bottle and then left. But moments later, the defendant returned telling the man that he found a dollar and threw it at him. At this point, Carroll yelled a homophobic slur about the victim’s attire and the doctor told him that he was gay.
Upon hearing that the victim was gay, Katz said, the defendant became enraged, repeatedly referred to the victim by a homophobic slur and shouted to a man on the opposite platform that the victim was “worse than his girl,” according to the charges.
Suddenly, Carroll allegedly attacked the man — punching him in the face and knocking him to the platform surface where the victim lost consciousness. The defendant then took the victim’s cell phone along with his gym bag and fled the scene. Video surveillance at the station captured the defendant minutes before the attack as well as afterward.
The victim sustained a lasting injury to his retina which has permanently affected his vision. Carroll was arrested two days later on a different matter and was identified by the arresting officer after viewing the surveillance video from the LIRR station.
“Hate has no place in our borough,” Katz said. “The defendant, in this case, attacked a man without provocation. The defendant yelled out homophobic slurs and insults and then knocked the victim out and stole his property. A jury weighed the evidence and found the defendant guilty at trial.”
