Daniel Paguay will be sentenced on April 30 after his conviction on charges of attempted murder and rape. He faces up to fifty years in prison.
A 22-year-old Corona man has been convicted in the attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl, who is also the mother of his infant son. Daniel Paguay was also convicted on a charge that he forcibly raped the teenager two months before the June 2011 attack.
Paguay was convicted of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree rape, second- and third-degree assault, second-degree burglary, second-degree criminal trespass aggravated criminal contempt, first- and second-degree criminal contempt, resisting arrest and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
He faced a three week trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth C. Holder, who set sentencing for April 30.
Prosecutors say a jealous rage led to the attacks, the second of which left the girl paralyzed for over 8 months.
Trial testimony revealed that Paguay went to the residence of his ex-girlfriend’s mother to ask her to move back in with him. When she refused he took out a knife and forced her to accompany him back to his house, a few doors away.
He brought her to the basement and stabbed Analy Mejia in the thigh. “I did that to make you feel the same sas me,” he stated and then proceeded to remove her pants and forcibly rape her. Eventually, he allowed Mejia to return home.
The girl obtained an order of protection after the rape, which prohibited Paguay from having any contact or communication with her at all. However, on June 11, 2011, at about 2 a.m. he broke into her residence and went rummaging through paperwork that she kept in her bedroom, in an attempt to find threatening notes that he had sent to her. When her sister confronted him, he said he was looking for his property and then he fled the residence.
Later that morning, he chased Mejia down 38th Avenue, grabbed her in a chokehold and held a knife at her side. An argument ensued outside the store with Paguay and his cousin, Gabriel Calle, who was now dating Mejia. The two men got into a scuffle and Paguay stabbed Calle.
He then dragged Mejia into the Fine Fare Supermarket on 109th Street and 37th Avenue, holding her at knifepoint. When police arrived at the scene, he stabbed the girl three times in the back a butcher knife he had seized from the meat counter at the supermarket.
She arrived at Elmhurst Hospital with multiple puncture wounds to her back, paralyzed from the waist down, and in cardiac arrest.
Paguay, who has been held without bail since his arraignment in June 2011, faces up to fifty years when he appears at the end of the month for sentencing.
