Teen to serve 10 years for fatal stabbing

A teenager who was convicted of stabbing a Westbury man to death in a case of mistaken identity will serve 10 years to life in prison for his crime, a Nassau judge ruled Friday.

Yan Cifuentes was just 15 in November 2010, when prosecutors say he and another man, Pedro Santos, 17, attacked Yunior Orlando Maldonado on a Hempstead street because they believed he was in a rival gang.

Cifuentes' lawyer, Toni Angeli of Garden City, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Prosecutor Michael Walsh said in court that Cifuentes and Santos, both of Hempstead and both members of the violent 18th Street gang, mistook Maldonado for a member of the rival gang MS13. But Walsh said they were mistaken.

Santos was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing in December and faces 25 years to life when Nassau Judge David Sullivan sentences him. Cifuentes faced a maximum of 15 years to life in prison because he was a minor at the time he committed the crime, prosecutors said.