Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a Brooklyn man has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for the murder of a New York City Correction Officer who was ambushed and shot five times as she sat in her car in Bergen Beach about to leave for work.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun sentenced Keon Richmond, 37, of Kensington for the brutal murder of Officer Alastasia Bryan, 25, nearly four years ago.
“This defendant’s calculated, cold-blooded murder cut short Officer Alastasia Bryan’s promising life and robbed her family and friends of a beloved daughter, sister, companion, colleague and friend. With today’s substantial prison sentence, this defendant will no longer be a threat to anyone else in our community,” said Gonzalez.
According to the evidence, the crime occurred at about 9:15, p.m., December 4, 2016, with Bryan sitting in her car at the corner of Avenue L and East 73rd Street, in Bergen Beach. She was preparing to drive to Rikers Island, where she worked as a Correction Officer, when the defendant shot her five times in the chest, hand and both arms.
The defendant, according to the evidence, was able to track the victim’s movements using a GPS tracking device registered with his name and cell phone number that he placed on her car three days before the shooting.
After shooting Officer Bryan, according to the evidence, the defendant fled the scene in a Hyundai Elantra, which had license plates registered to his girlfriend, Shirley Mejia, 26.
Two days after the murder, Mejia paid to have the car stored at a mechanic’s shop in New Jersey and Richmond removed the license plates. Cell site records, surveillance video and other electronic data placed the defendant at the scene of the homicide at the time of the murder and captured his flight to New Jersey after the shooting.
Mejia pleaded guilty to first-degree hindering prosecution and will be sentenced on March 25, 2020.
The case was investigated by New York City Police Department Detective Valery Paulblanc of the 63rd Precinct Detective Squad and retired Detective Patrick Henn of the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad.
Paralegal Meghan Brancato, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, and Analysts Daniel Figlin and Alexandra Aber, of the District Attorney’s Crime Strategies Unit, assisted in the investigation.
