FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Man Sentenced to 25 Years to Life in Prison for the 2015 Death
Of Staten Island Woman in East Williamsburg Hotel
Victim Suffered Compression of the Neck and Chest
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a Brownsville man has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of a 34-year-old mother of four from Staten Island. He was convicted of second-degree murder last month following a jury trial.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, “This is a tragic case in which this defendant preyed on a helpless woman, taking a mother from her four children. Hopefully, today’s sentence will provide some measure of justice for her friends and family.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Joseph Danclair, 40, of Brownsville, Brooklyn. He was sentenced today to 25 years to life in prison by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Dineen Riviezzo. He was convicted of second-degree murder last month following a jury trial.
The District Attorney said that, according to the evidence, on July 23, 2015, at approximately 4:30 p.m., the victim, Chrissy Bevelaqua, 34, was discovered naked with bruises to her neck and head in a hotel room at the Bushwick Hotel located at 171 Bushwick Avenue in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The victim was found on a bed by hotel staff, who notified the police. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The Office of the New York City Medical Examiner determined the cause of death to be compression of the neck and chest.
During the investigation, the police recovered the defendant’s DNA and fingerprints from the hotel room. Danclair was also captured on surveillance video entering the hotel with the victim and later leaving alone. Police later learned that he was picked up at the hotel by a livery driver and was dropped off in Brownsville.
The defendant was arrested on September 17, 2015, in Manhattan. In a video statement recorded by the police, he admitted to being in the hotel room.
The District Attorney thanked Michel Dilone, of the DA’s Victim Services Unit, for her assistance on this case.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Olatokunbo Olaniyan, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau and Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Payne, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Timothy Gough, Homicide Bureau Chief.
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