Road rage incident on Southern State Parkway leads to arrest on charges of stabbing driver, prosecutors say
Rashawn Marquez leaves Nassau Police headquarters on Monday in Mineola. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
A Brooklyn man pleaded not guilty Monday morning to attempted murder charges after prosecutors said he stabbed another driver multiple times after a road rage incident Sunday in Franklin Square.
Rashawn Marquez, 34, of Brooklyn, was ordered held in lieu of $750,000 cash bail or $1.5 million bond during his arraignment Monday in Nassau First District Court in Hempstead.
He was also charged with felony assault and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Prosecutors said Marquez was involved in a crash with a 20-year-old driver on the Southern State Parkway just before 4:30 a.m. Sunday. He then followed him outside a home on Rosegold Street in Franklin Square where the driver was stabbed, causing the victim to be "catastrophically injured," Nassau County Deputy Bureau Chief Melissa Morrone said in court Monday.
The stabbing victim suffered multiple injuries including a wound to his neck and a 7-inch gash to his muscle that required 200 stitches and damaged his ulnar nerve in his arm, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Marquez drove away following the stabbing but left behind several of his ID cards and his car keys at the scene.
A Legal Aid attorney for Marquez, Taylor Gantz, said during the arraignment that the other driver hit Marquez’s car and drove away before the fight escalated. She said he "vehemently denies the framing of the allegations."
Marquez told police that the victim hit his 2022 Acura and, later, attacked him with a baseball bat, causing neck and shoulder injuries, attorneys said.
"He hit me with a bat. I just protected myself," Marquez told police, according to a criminal complaint. "I just was beating him up, he hit my car. I chased him ... [he] came out of the car, tried to hit me with a bat."
Marquez was previously convicted in Brooklyn of attempted murder in 2010 in Brooklyn when he was also charged with assault and possession of a loaded firearm. He was sentenced to five years in prison and five years post-release supervision, prosecutors said.
He was released in December 2014 and rearrested on a parole violation, prosecutors said. He completed his parole by 2020, his attorney said.
Marquez’s attorney said he was a mechanic with ConEd and father of three children.
He was ordered to return to court July 9.
John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.
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