RIKERS ISLAND INMATE SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS IN PRISON FOR STABBING NYC DOC OFFICER 12 TIMES IN THE HEAD

 

Defendant Pleaded Guilty to Attempted Assault in the First-degree Victim Sustained Serious Injuries During Unprovoked Attack

 Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Rikers Island inmate has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for stabbing a New York City Department of Correction Officer in the head multiple times.

 District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant stabbed the victim, a DOC Correction Officer, a dozen times in the head with a sharpened metal. This was a brazen, unprovoked attack against a Correction Officer who was working his shift in the Protective Custody Unit in Rikers Island.”

 District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Dennis Applewhite, 29, a Rikers Island inmate, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Ralph Fabrizio. During his arraignment on November 1, 2022, the defendant told the court that he wanted to plead guilty. He officially pleaded guilty to Attempted Assault in the first degree on February 7, 2023.

 According to the investigation, on October 31, 2022 at approximately 4:45 p.m., inside the Protective Custody Unit of the Anna M. Cross Center, the defendant went up to the 28-year-old Correction Officer and stabbed him in the back of the head 12 times with an eight-inch piece of sharpened metal. The defendant was removed by other Correction Officers who came to the victim’s aid. The victim was taken to Elmhurst Hospital after sustaining lacerations to his head and a puncture wound to the right side of his neck. The victim still has difficulty moving his neck since the attack.

 District Attorney Clark thanked Trial Preparation Assistant Mel-Asia Pugh and Jevet Johnson, Director of the Rikers Island Sex Offense Initiative, for their assistance.

 District Attorney Clark also thanked the New York City Department of Correction Intelligence Bureau, specifically Investigators Epifanio Vasquez, Lakeisha White, Juan Rivera, and Walter Holmes for their work in the investigation.