Act Daily News
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A New York City man who fatally struck a 61-year-old Chinese girl with a rock in an unprovoked assault in November 2021 was sentenced Tuesday to twenty years in jail.
Elisaul Perez, 33, of Brooklyn, pleaded responsible to first-degree manslaughter in Queens County Criminal Court final month for the killing of Guiying Ma in Jackson Heights, in line with Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
Ma had been sweeping the sidewalk and avenue outdoors a pal’s house at about 8 a.m. on November 26, 2021, when Perez picked up a big rock and struck her within the head, the district lawyer stated. She fell and Perez then struck her within the head once more, Katz stated.
Ma was taken to a hospital and had emergency surgical procedure for extreme head trauma and mind accidents however died from her accidents in February. Perez was arrested the day after the assault.
The killing was one in every of a variety of unprovoked assaults on Asian individuals in the previous few years that specialists stated stemmed from anti-Asian bias linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. The New York Police Department created the Asian Hate Crime Task Force in 2020, and NYPD knowledge exhibits there 133 anti-Asian bias incidents in 2021.
In court docket Tuesday, Perez made no assertion. When he walked into the courtroom, he acknowledged somebody within the room and made a smirk at them, and when he exited in handcuffs he additionally regarded again at this particular person and frowned. Defense lawyer David Strachan stated he had nothing to notice apart from they relied on the promise Perez could be sentenced to twenty years in jail.
Jennifer Wu, an lawyer for Ma’s household, learn a translated assertion in court docket from Ma’s husband, Zhanxin Gao, saying that they felt at house in New York City previous to the assault.
“The five years in New York that I lived here gave us a deep affection for the city,” she learn. “We felt welcomed by the people here.”
But the assault on his spouse strained his relationship together with his son and mother-in-law, and he has since moved again to China. Perez’s actions “took away the love of my life, the mother to my son … and took away, for me, my life in this country.”
Yihung Hsieh, a household pal and the proprietor of the Jackson Heights property, additionally spoke in court docket and stated Gao was once a contented man, however “the tragedy that happened to Ma hit him very hard,” Hsieh stated.
“When I sent video to him he can’t stop crying … the tears and painful memory couldn’t stop,” he stated.
Last 12 months, Hsieh arrange a GoFundMe web page to assist cowl Ma’s medical bills and posted updates about her well being after the assault. Ma had come to New York from Liaoning, China, 4 years earlier, and her husband labored in a restaurant cleansing, Hsieh wrote. Their son and two grandchildren remained in China, he wrote.
“She will be remembered as an outgoing, friendly and kind individual who took care of everyone, and insisted on giving to others even when she had very little to give,” Hsieh wrote within the publish.
Katz, the district lawyer, stated outdoors court docket she hoped the case introduced closure to the sufferer’s household.
“Today was about justice but it was also about closure for the Ma family,” she stated. “We were pleased that they were involved, the family friends were involved, and that we were able to keep in constant communication with the family, and with the community that supported them so wholeheartedly.”