QUEENS, NY – Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Alhusene Danso, 20, has been arraigned in Supreme Court following a Queens County grand jury handed up an indictment charging the defendant with robbery and assault for a vicious attack on an octogenarian. The victim was attacked as she exited her parking garage in Forest Hills on January 3, 2021.
District Attorney Katz said, “This defendant is accused of brutalizing an elderly woman for the contents of her purse. Not only did the defendant allegedly grab the 83-year-old woman’s bag, but he also shoved her so hard to the ground that two bones in her arm were shattered.
This cowardly attack on this woman – old enough to be a great-grandmother – has the defendant facing very serious charges.” Danso, of Washington Avenue in the Bronx, was arraigned today before Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant on a seven-count indictment charging the defendant with robbery in the second degree, assault in the second and third-degree, grand larceny in the fourth degree and criminal possession of the stolen property in the fourth and fifth-degree.
Justice Pandit-Durant set the defendant’s return date for March 25, 2021. If convicted, Danso faces up to 25 years in prison. District Attorney Katz said, on Sunday evening, January 3, 2020, that the 83-year-old victim was walking on Queens Boulevard near the intersection of 112th Street in Forest Hills, Queens.
Without warning, the defendant jumped out of an SUV and allegedly pushed the elderly woman to the ground, causing her elbow to shatter. The defendant then took the victim’s purse which contained a small amount of cash, her cellphone, an ATM card, credit card and her personal identification. The defendant allegedly got back into the dark-colored vehicle and fled the scene.DA Katz said, the victim was taken to a local hospital where she was admitted and treated for her injuries.
According to the charges, surveillance video footage recorded later that day shows Danso allegedly attempting to use the victim’s ATM card at a Bronx bodega.
2 Senior Assistant District Attorney Laura Weinstock, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Eric C. Rosenbaum, Bureau Chief, Debra Lynn Pomodore and Brian C. Hughes, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.