May 17, 2016 Staff Report
A 39-year-old Astoria man who killed a man with a knife inside his Steinway Street apartment was sentenced today to 25 years to life, according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office.
Wahid Elawame, who lived at 25-60 Steinway Street, stabbed and slashed a man to death inside his own apartment at around 11:30 pm on May 4, 2012. The perpetrator took exception to the victim and two other men trying to flee his apartment.
Elawame tried to stop the men from leaving and pulled out a knife and began slashing the victim, Mrwan Said. The two other men jumped out of an apartment window and landed two flights below on the roof of a one-story restaurant.
When police arrived at Elawame’s Steinway Street apartment, they found the victim dead in a pool of his own blood with puncture wounds to his hand and upper chest. Elawame was sitting on a couch in front of the victim smoking a cigarette.
“This was an especially violent crime,” said Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown. “The court has now sentenced him to a lengthy term behind bars that will protect society and punish him for needlessly killing another man.”
The defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder on April 6, 2016, following a jury trial.
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