FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, November 20, 2017
Queens Motorist Sentenced To Three Years in Prison for
Assaulting Truck Driver in Road Rage Incident
Struck Driver with Rubber Mallet after Fender Bender
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 36-year-old dollar van driver has been sentenced to three years in prison following an assault conviction for striking a delivery truck driver with a rubber mallet, causing broken vertebrae, after the two got into a minor motor vehicle accident.
Acting District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said, “This defendant inexplicably escalated a minor traffic incident into an assault and left the victim with serious injuries. Such unwarranted violence should never be a response to a dispute, making today’s prison sentence appropriate and just.”
The Acting District Attorney identified the defendant as Damian Bailey, 36, of Jamaica, Queens. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Matthew Sciarrino to three years in prison and three years’ post-release supervision following his conviction last month for second-degree assault after a jury trial.
The Acting District Attorney said that, according to testimony, on March 20, 2016, at about 12 noon, in the vicinity of 98 Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the defendant was driving a dollar van when he struck a Fresh Direct delivery truck, driven by a 23-year-old man. The two motorists exited their vehicles and engaged in an argument.
The victim stood in front of the van, attempting to take a picture of the defendant’s license plate, when the defendant drove forward, forcing the victim to grab on to the hood of the van. The defendant drove for about half a block with the victim clinging onto the hood and then got out of the van and struck the victim multiple times with a rubber mallet, the evidence showed. An NYPD detective was flagged down by several motorists pointing in the direction of the defendant. The detective exited his vehicle and observed the defendant holding the mallet and walking away from the victim, who was in a fetal position on the ground next to the dollar van, according to trial testimony.
The victim was taken to Methodist Hospital. He suffered three broken vertebrae to his spine and bruises to his shoulder and knee.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Sara Gronningsater and Assistant District Attorney Gabriel Huertas of the District Attorney’s Blue Zone Trial Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Robert Walsh, Bureau Chief.
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