A man who beat a taxi driver to death in Queens was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison, according to the borough’s district attorney. The man, Austin Amos, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in May.
Two years ago, Mr. Amos, 22, took a cab from Manhattan to Far Rockaway, Queens, with four companions. When they arrived, the group got into a dispute with the cab’s driver, Kutin Gyimah, over the fare, according to prosecutors. Mr. Amos and three of the other passengers punched and kicked the driver, prosecutors said. Mr. Gyimah, 52, died from his injuries the same day.
In a statement announcing the sentence, the Queens district attorney, Melinda Katz, said that Mr. Gyimah had been “brutally beaten and left for dead” by Mr. Amos and the other passengers.
Mr. Gyimah picked up the group in a yellow minivan taxi on Aug. 13, 2022. He dropped them off a few blocks away from Rockaway Beach just before 6:30 a.m., but the passengers took off without paying for their ride, prosecutors said. Mr. Gyimah caught up with one of them before the others surrounded him and began beating him.
The assault was captured on security camera footage, which showed one of the attackers — Mr. Amos, according to prosecutors — punching Mr. Gyimah in the head. The footage then showed him falling to the ground and lying motionless on his back. Mr. Gyimah was pronounced dead later that day at a hospital.
One of the other assailants, Nickolas Porter, pleaded guilty to attempted gang assault and was sentenced to two years in prison in February. Two months later, Mr. Porter, 22, was released on parole, according to records from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
The other three passengers in the taxi were teenage girls. Two of them participated in the attack along with Mr. Porter and Mr. Amos, according to the district attorney. Their cases were referred to family court, prosecutors said.
At the time of the attack, the three girls were under 17. Mr. Porter and Mr. Amos were both 20.
Mr. Amos’s 10-year sentence was handed down Tuesday in Queens Criminal Court by Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant. After Mr. Amos serves his sentence, he will be subject to five years of supervision. He had no prior arrest records, the police said.
Mr. Amos was represented by Jonathan Latimer of the Queens Defenders. Mr. Latimer could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Gyimah lived in the Bronx with a wife and four children under the age of 10, according to a GoFundMe page organized by the taxi service that had employed him.
Speaking to reporters in 2022, Mr. Gyimah’s wife described her husband as a “good, good man.”
“He was my backbone,” she said. “I’m lost right now, my children here. I don’t know what to do right now. I am lost. I am lost in this world.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
