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Parks worker convicted in slay

By Alex Robinson

A city Parks Department employee was found guilty of manslaughter Monday in the 2012 stabbing of a co-worker at a recreation center in Flushing, the Queens district attorney’s office said.

Robert Swann, 53, stabbed fellow Parks employee Ezra Black, who was 31 at the time, with a knife in the torso inside the Al Oerter Recreation Center on Fowler Avenue, the DA said.

He then discarded the knife and the clothes he was wearing in a field near Flushing Meadows Corona Park, according to the DA’s office. When he was arrested, Swann allegedly admitted to police he had stabbed Black, the DA said.

A jury at Queens Criminal Court found Swann guilty of manslaughter in the killing, but acquitted him of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of tampering with physical evidence.

He will be sentenced April 28 and faces five to 25 years in prison.

Reach reporter Alex Robinson by e-mail at arobinson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.