On Friday, acting Westchester County District Attorney James McCarty announced that Michael Thomas - also known as Laquan Smith - had been sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of seven felony charges.
According to McCarty, shortly before 1 a.m. on July 8 last year, Thomas approached his victim near Linden Street, where he stabbed him multiple times in the chest, stealing his backpack. Minutes earlier, he had threatened to rob a man with a knife on South Broadway.
Thomas’ victim was taken to Jacobi Medical Center without a pulse. Emergency personnel were required to give him a cardiac massage, an emergency thoracotomy, two sequences of defibrillation and heart surgery to save his life.
On the same day of the stabbings, the Yonkers Police Department conducted an “intensive” investigation before arresting Thomas.
Thomas was found guilty of two counts of armed robbery, two counts of assault, one count of attempted robbery and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
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