A Jamaica man admitted to threatening a Long Island Rail Road conductor after failing to produce a ticket on his way home from Brooklyn in August and brandishing a knife when confronted by a number of transit workers, causing injuries to two of them, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
Taijuan Corse, 32, of 133rd Avenue, pleaded guilty on April 19 in Queens Supreme Court to attempted assault in the second degree for brandishing the blade during the confrontation as the train was pulling into Jamaica Station. Corse is facing one to three years in prison if he fails to complete the conditions of his plea deal, and he is banned from the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains for three years, as requested by the district attorney.
According to the charges, on the morning of Aug. 25, 2022, shortly after 11 a.m., Corse boarded an eastbound LIRR train at Atlantic Terminal. When 53-year-old conductor Steven Torborg asked for Corse’s train ticket, he said he didn’t have one and pulled out a knife and threatened him. Three additional transit workers approached Corse and saw him remove a knife from his backpack, which he waved at them.
Corse repeatedly lunged with the knife toward 61-year-old Walter Doner, Jr., and swung the knife toward 52-year-old Richard Cutrone, cutting his arm, according to the charges. Corse threatened to kill the workers, and, as the train approached the Jamaica LIRR train station, cut 60-year-old Gerald Lopez.
“Transit workers deserve to be treated with respect as they perform their duties and should never have to fear violence from passengers,” Katz said. “For the first time in New York City, a defendant’s sentence includes a transit ban. This defendant has forfeited the privilege of using our commuter trains for the foreseeable future, making it clear that incidents like this one will be taken very seriously.”
Queens Supreme Court Justice Jerry Iannece ordered, as a condition of Corse’s plea deal, a one-year substance abuse and mental health outpatient program plus the three-year ban from riding the rails on the LIRR and Metro-North. Failure to satisfactorily complete the terms of the sentence would result in one to three years of incarceration.
