Defendant Pleaded Guilty to Manslaughter
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx landlord has been
sentenced to 10 years in prison for fatally stabbing a tenant in 2017.
District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant repeatedly stabbed the victim over unpaid
rent. Then the defendant, with blood on his clothes, walked into the 45th Precinct stationhouse
and told Police Officers he had stabbed someone.”
District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Taha Mahran, 54, of 1001 Logan Avenue, was
sentenced today by Bronx Supreme Court Justice James McCarty to 10 years in prison and 5
years post-release supervision. The defendant pleaded guilty to first-degree Manslaughter on May
31, 2019 after accepting a 10-year sentence offer from the judge, rather than the 13-year offer
from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. The second-degree Murder charge was dismissed after
an expert obtained by the People concluded that the defendant’s Extreme Emotional Distress
defense was valid.
According to the investigation, on February 22, 2017, at 1001 Logan Avenue, the
defendant caused the death of Zakir Khan, 44, a tenant that lived in an apartment located in
Mahran’s multi-family home. On the day of the incident, Mahran and Khan were arguing about
an ongoing dispute over months of unpaid rent the victim owed the defendant. Mahran stabbed
Khan multiple times in the torso and neck with a knife, leaving him with 29 wounds. The incident
happened in front of the victim’s 11-year-old child. The victim was pronounced dead at Jacobi
Medical Center shortly after the stabbing.
District Attorney Clark thanked former Homicide Bureau Assistant District Attorney Leah
Takantzas and NYPD Detective Robert Klein of Bronx Homicide Task Force for their assistance
in the investigation.
