A Queens motorist was sentenced to 10 years behind bars on Wednesday nearly two years after a road rage bias attack on another driver that quickly escalated into hateful language and deadly violence.
Prosecutors initially charged Gilbert Augustin with manslaughter and assault as hate crimes in the October 2023 beating death of Jasmer Singh, 66, a Sikh man whom Augustin repeatedly derided as “turban man” during the vicious Van Wyck Expressway attack.
But Augustin pleaded guilty to second-degree assault as a hate crime, avoiding even more prison time if he had been convicted by a Queens jury on the manslaughter charge.
Cops were reluctant at first to charge Augustin with a hate crime. But a grand jury investigation revealed more details about the attack that previously were not available to detectives, officials said.
Outrage from the Sikh community, as well as a social media push calling for hate crime charges, encouraged prosecutors to take another look at the case, officials said.
Augustin flew into a rage Oct. 19 after his Mustang collided with the 66-year-old father of three’s Toyota on the Van Wyck Expressway near Hillside Ave. in Kew Gardens, prosecutors said.
The two pulled over and Augustin stormed up to Singh, who was still seated in his car with his wife, according to prosecutors.
A witness observed Augustin saying, “No police, no police,” and repeatedly referring to Singh as “turban man,” then telling the victim he was not going to let him go home and didn’t want him to call the cops, prosecutors said.
Augustin reached into Singh’s car and took his cell phone, so Singh got out of the Toyota to retrieve it and eventually got his phone back, according to prosecutors.
As Singh walked back to his car, Augustin punched him three times in the head and face, knocking his turban off his head and sending him sprawling backward to the ground, prosecutors said. The back of Singh’s head slammed into the pavement, causing a brain injury.
Singh died at the hospital the next day — the same day an NYPD officer spotted Augustin sitting in his dented Mustang on 111th Ave. in Jamaica, prosecutors said. Augustin, who had a suspended license and couldn’t show valid insurance, was taken into custody.
Augustin denied that bigotry was a motive for the attack.
“I appreciate my family’s support,” he said in court. “I am not a hateful person.”
Augustin was also sentenced to five years of postrelease supervision.