Photo Courtesy of CrimiNet
Diaz initially claimed that his girlfriend had been shot during a home invasion.
By Forum Staff
A Queens man, who initially claimed that his girlfriend had been shot during a home invasion, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for criminal possession of a weapon and other charges in the February 2014 shooting. The victim, who sustained massive brain damage, is confined to a nursing home and cannot communicate in any fashion.
District Attorney Brown said, “The lengthy prison sentence imposed by the court punishes the defendant for the crimes that he committed. Justice has been done.”
Steven Diaz, 33, of 127th Street in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, has been held in jail in lieu of $2 million bail since his arrest in February 2014, and was convicted last month of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, first-degree criminal possession of marijuana and tampering with evidence. Last week a judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison.
According to trial testimony, between 4:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, February 9, 2014, the victim, Amanda Rivera, was shot once in the head with a 9mm handgun inside the couple’s third-floor apartment. Diaz took the victim to a local hospital and told responding police that he was a drug dealer and that three masked robbers had broken in to steal his stash of marijuana and that one of the intruders shot Ms. Rivera in the head.
Diaz later admitted to police that he accidentally fired the shot that nearly killed Ms. Rivera. He also stated that on the way to the hospital that he had tossed the gun into the sewer. A search of the sewer, however, yielded negative results but a subsequent search of the defendant’s residence resulted in the recovery of more than 50 pounds of marijuana.
The victim, now 25 and residing in a nursing home, has permanent brain damage and cannot speak or communicate in any way.
Diaz’s first trial ended in a mistrial in March 2016 when during deliberations a sworn juror became unavailable to deliberate any further due to a personal matter.
