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COURIER L 10 IFE, AUGUST 7-13, 2020
Backstabber!
Manhattan Beach man gets 10 years
in prison for Flatbush hate crime
BY BEN VERDE
A Manhattan Beach
man was sentenced to
10 years in prison for a
2018 hate crime assault
in Flatbush, according
to the District Attorney’s
offi ce.
Aleksejs Saveljevs, 34,
was sentenced by Brooklyn
Supreme Court Justice
Danny Chun following
a gulity plea for
fi rst-degree attempted
assault as a hate crime
for stabbing a 57-yearold
Black woman without
provocation on a
subway platform.
“This defendant viciously
assaulted a fellow
subway rider for
no other reason than
the color of her skin,”
Brooklyn District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez said.
Aleksejs Saveljevs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for
stabbing a Black woman without provocation on a Flatbush
subway platform in 2018. Brooklyn District Attorney
“Acts of hatred are not
tolerated in Brooklyn, a
place that prides itself
on the diversity of its communities. I
hope this sentence sends a clear message
that racism and intolerance are
unwelcomed here.”
According to the District Attorney,
on Nov. 9, 2018, Saveljevs approached
the victim from behind on the platform
of the Church Avenue station in
Flatbush after she got off the Q train,
grabbed her, and hit her several times
on her shoulder and upper back.
A bystander approached and
helped the victim up the stairs while
the attacker hurled racial epithets at
them. The bystander then told the assailant
to back off and Saveljevs fl ed
the scene, while the victim spit up
blood at the top of the stairs.
When emergency personnel fi rst
examined the victim, they found no
serious injuries. But when the victim
went home and went to sleep, she began
to vomit while in bed, discovered
bloodstains on her sheets, and realized
she had been stabbed in the back,
according to the report.
The victim was hospitalized for
over a week and treated for a collapsed
lung. Following her release, while going
through the items she was carrying
at the time of the assault, she
found a screwdriver that did not belong
to her and called the police.
The attacker’s DNA, which was in
the city’s database due to a previous
case, was found on the screwdriver.
Saveljevs also faces an additional
two to four years in prison for assaulting
an off-duty police offi cer the day
before the hate crime, who was walking
his dog along Williams Court
near E. 11th Street in Sheepshead Bay
when Saveljevs walloped him in the
face unprovoked with a sharp object
and yelled “I am going to f—- you up!”
The offi cer suffered a broken cheekbone
and required several staples to
treat cuts to his head and face.
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