QUEENS MAN SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS IN PRISON IN DEATH OF WOMAN HIT BY STRAY BULLET IN SEPTEMBER 2020

Usanewsonline.com  Desk: Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Issam Elabbar, 32, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for firing an illegal gun in the middle of the night that killed a woman. The victim, a mother of three, was struck when the bullet pierced a window of her apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, in September 2020. District Attorney Katz said, “The victim of this senseless crime was in her home – a place where one would expect to be safe from harm.

Tragically, the woman’s oldest son discovered his mother gasping for air and bleeding to death. In pleading guilty, the defendant has admitted to firing randomly without regard for human life. He has now been sentenced by the Court for his criminal actions.” Elabbar, of 41 st Avenue in Corona, pleaded guilty in December 2021 to manslaughter in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise.

Today Justice Aloise sentenced Elabbar to 15 years in prison, to be followed by five years’ post release supervision. District Attorney Katz said, shortly before 1 a.m. on September 30, 2020, the defendant was in the roadway on 34 th Avenue near 92 nd Street when he fired a single shot over his shoulder. At the same time, Bertha Arriaga, was at her apartment’s bedroom window. The bullet ripped through the window and pierced Ms. Arriaga in the neck. Continuing, according to Court records, the 43-year-old wife and mother fell to the floor bleeding profusely from the single gunshot wound. As she gasped for air, the woman’s then-14-year-old son heard noise, walked into the room and saw his mother in a pool of blood struggling to breath.

Ms. Arriaga’s husband performed CPR on her in an effort to save her life, but the injury was fatal. Senior Assistant District Attorney Courtney Charles, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter J. McCormack III and John W. Kosinski, Senior Deputy Bureau Chiefs, Karen Ross, Deputy Bureau Chief and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders. Press Release