By Bill Parry
A Bronx man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the strangulation death of a Jackson Heights teacher and his accomplice has copped a plea to robbing the victim of his cell phone and other items, the Queens district attorney said. The case was one of several to shake the LGBT community in recent years.
“In pleading guilty, the two defendants admit their roles in this January 2013 crime,” DA Richard Brown said. “One defendant strangled the teacher to death and the other robbed him. They both now face lengthy prison terms for their actions.”
The district attorney said Cecil Golden, 22, of Fulton Ave., pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Nov. 10 in the death of David Rangel, a 53-year-old who taught Spanish to seventh and eight-graders at PS 219 in Flushing. According to court records, Golden and Bronx resident Elijah Agyepong, 21, allegedly entered the victim’s home on 91st Street where they beat and robbed him before shoving the body under a couch.
The medical examiner’s office determined Rangel died as a result of compression of the neck and torso.
“To the LGBT community in Jackson Heights it was very frightening,” City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said. “They actually bludgeoned him with the couch. The police work in this case was groundbreaking in that there was a lot of forensic computer work.”
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Zayas has indicated that he will sentence Golden to 20 years in prison a five years’ post release supervision Dec. 5. Acting Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin-Brandt indicated she will sentence Agyepong to 15 years for first-degree robbery.
“I congratulate DA Brown for staying on top of this case,” Dromm said. “He is a great friend of the Jackson Heights LGBT community going back to the successful prosecution in the murder of Julio Rivera, the young Latino man that was killed by white skinheads who were actually hunting him.”
Rivera was a 29-year-old gay bartender when he was beaten to death in the summer of 1990. He became an instant martyr in the LBGT community leading to candlelight vigils, marches and three gay rights groups in Jackson Heights.
