NEW YORK — A U.S. Army veteran who violently assaulted a number of Asian ladies in an April 2022 hate crime rampage all through Manhattan was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in state jail on Monday.
Throughout a violent spree lasting practically three hours, Steven Zajonc, 30, spewed racist insults when he punched, elbowed and shoved seven ladies of Asian descent aged 19 to 57 within the Midtown, Nolita and Greenwich Village neighborhoods, ambushing some from behind.
At his Manhattan Supreme Court docket sentencing, Assistant District Legal professional Neil Greenwell stated Zajonc systematically picked out Asian ladies to assault as they went about their day by day enterprise, placing six together with his fists or elbows and shoving one girl to the bottom.
One sufferer who Zajonc knocked unconscious suffered a concussion and fractured enamel necessitating extended therapy. Others suffered cuts and bruises on their faces, the assistant district legal professional stated.
Greenwell stated the victims’ scars from the psychological impression of being attacked due to their race would take far longer to heal. The incident got here amid a spate of unprovoked assaults on Asian New Yorkers, together with an assault on a Yonkers girl pummeled not less than 125 occasions the month prior within the vestibule of her constructing.
The ADA stated Zajonc’s victims didn’t attend his sentencing as a number of feared seeing him once more. Greenwell stated that one who offered a sufferer impression assertion to prosecutors stated she not felt protected coming into the town alone or going out at evening.
“Why her?” is the query the sufferer feared individuals would ask if she spoke publicly in regards to the assault, Greenwell stated, including that she was nonetheless coping with basic signs of trauma, like worrying whether or not individuals would consider she did one thing to deserve being on the receiving finish of Zajonc’s vitriol.
Zajonc pleaded responsible to 6 felonies of third-degree assault as a hate crime and one misdemeanor of second-degree aggravated harassment in June. His 1 1/3- to 4-year sentence on the felony counts and 364-day time period for the misdemeanor will run concurrently.
In line with courtroom information, the Florida man was homeless on the time of the incidents coping with untreated psychological sickness. Zajonc’s mom beforehand stated he hadn’t proven animus towards Asian communities earlier than the day of the assaults.
“I began having visions and listening to voices a few years in the past of individuals insulting me. Every thing unhealthy in my life has occurred since that began,” Zajonc informed cops after his arrest.
Greenwell stated prosecutors had factored Zajonc’s important psychological well being points in forming a therapy plan for his launch. He has a pending case within the Bronx for allegedly attacking a corrections officer in April.
Zajonc’s lawyer, Michael Fineman, couldn’t be reached for remark.
New York Metropolis officers obtained 111 hate crime complaints within the first quarter of 2023 and made 61 arrests, based on NYPD information.
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