A cab dispatcher passed away a few days after being attacked by an angry driver outside a Midtown hotel last month. The alleged attacker was released due to a legal loophole, as reported by the police and sources.
Efrain Patino Guerra, 53, was on duty at a cab stand outside the Hotel Riu Plaza Manhattan Times Square on West 47th Street near Seventh Avenue on June 17 around 1:15 p.m. when driver Jaime Rosario, 54, became aggressive, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
While Guerra was assigning fares to drivers outside the hotel, he inadvertently skipped one driver, leading to a confrontation with the dispatcher by the enraged driver, as per Kenny.
“He’s very much bigger than Mr. Patino, and at some point, he sucker-punches him square in the face,” Kenny stated. “You can see from the video he’s clearly knocked unconscious — while he’s standing up, falls back and hits his head on the concrete.”
Patino Guerra was motionless until first responders took him to Bellevue Hospital, where he was initially in critical condition and spent some time in a coma, according to Kenny and a complaint filed in Manhattan Criminal Court against Rosario.
During his hospital stay, Patino Guerra suffered cardiac arrest and was “kind of dead for about seven minutes” before being resuscitated, said the police official.
He eventually succumbed to his injuries on June 27, according to the police.
Three days prior, the NYPD arrested Rosario and charged him with second-degree assault, as confirmed by Kenny.
However, the charge was reduced to third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, in court due to the absence of intent to cause serious physical harm or the use of a weapon, sources in law enforcement mentioned.
As per the sources, neither of those conditions could be proven, given that Rosario allegedly struck Patino Guerra with a single blow to the face.
Judge Jonathan Svetkey granted Rosario supervised release, as the misdemeanor charge does not qualify for bail, in compliance with the bail reforms initiated statewide in 2020.
Records indicate that Rosario is set to appear in court again on July 18.
It is still uncertain whether Rosario may face upgraded charges as the investigation progresses.
In a similar incident in Brooklyn in March, a tow truck driver involved in a fatal altercation with a 61-year-old man over a parking spot was also released due to the same legal loophole in one-punch homicide cases.
At his arraignment on a charge of third-degree assault, Kevon M. Johnson, 30, who allegedly delivered a fatal punch that caused Carlyle Thomas, 61, to hit his head and pass away, was granted supervised release, prosecutors confirmed at the time.
“The law only allows for charges related to the punch, and there is no way to prove intent to cause death or any other serious injury,” a law enforcement source explained regarding that case.
