Aleksejs Saveljevs, 34, who stabbed a 57-year-old Black woman in a 2018 hate crime, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said on Thursday.
The victim, Ann Marie Washington, had just stepped off the subway train at the Flatbush station around 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 9 2018, when Saveljevs attacked her without provocation. He grabbed her and struck her repeatedly from behind with a knife in the back and shoulders, while shouting out racial slurs.
When a witness intervened, Saveljevs yelled “Black b-tch!” according to testimony. Washington returned to her home, where she spat up blood but was not aware she had been stabbed. When she tried to sleep, she vomited, noticed blood on her bed sheets and realized she had sustained the injuries.
After her lung collapsed, she spent days at Kings County Hospital, where she was treated for her wounds.
“This defendant viciously assaulted a fellow subway rider for no other reason than the color of her skin — one of two unprovoked attacks he waged over the course of two days,” said Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun, who sentenced Saveljevs to 10 years for the hate crime assault on the woman.
Saveljevs has pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted assault as a hate crime.
The day before the assault, Saveljevs attacked an off-duty police officer. He shouted at the cop in Russian as the officer was walking his dog, before hitting him the face and fracturing his jaw. Saveljevs was arrested days latter, and his DNA came up as a match to DNA found on a screwdriver that did not belong to Washington was discovered in her lunchbox.
In addition to the 10-year sentence for the hate crime, Saveljevs was also sentenced to between two and four years in prison for the attack on the officer. Both sentences will run concurrently.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez says he hopes the sentence sends the message that “racism and intolerance” are not welcome in the city.
