Navy vet who plowed through Times Square pedestrians ‘lost his mind,’ says defense lawyer in bid for insanity verdict
A Navy veteran who killed an 18-year-old woman and injured 22 other people when he plowed his car through pedestrians in Times Square “lost his mind” and should be found not guilty because of his mental illness, his lawyer told a jury Wednesday.
Richard Rojas, 31, was acting on the orders of a “God-like” voice in his head, who told him to mow down “spirits” with his car, said his lawyer, Enrico DeMarco.
“He lost his mind. It’s very simple. He (was) in an acute psychotic moment,” said Rojas’ lawyer Enrico DeMarco. “The result of what happened that day is severe psychosis.”
During closing arguments at Rojas’ trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, Rojas’ defense team and the Manhattan DA’s office respectively spent more than two hours asking jurors to reach a different conclusion from the same set of facts.
Rojas, a Bronx resident who was indicted on second-degree murder and other charges, doesn’t deny prosecutors’ allegations that he killed 18-year-old Michigan tourist Alyssa Elsman and caused others life-altering injuries when he careened his Honda Accord through three blocks of crowded sidewalk on May 18, 2017.
DeMarco asked the jury to find Rojas “not responsible” for the carnage, which Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Daniel Conviser said would qualify him for long-term involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility instead of prison.
But Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson asked the jury to reject the insanity defense. He said prosecutors accept that Rojas is mentally ill but argued the voices in his head didn’t eliminate his sense of right and wrong.
“He evinced a depraved indifference to human life,” Peterson said. “The focus of this case is for you to determine whether (his) mental illness substantially affected his ability to know or appreciate what he was doing was” morally and legally corrupt.
Jurors in the trial viewed graphic footage of the carnage from multiple angles depicting the moment Rojas sped onto the sidewalk after making a sharp U-turn on 42nd St and Seventh Ave.
Piercing screams are heard on the disturbing footage as Rojas plows north at full speed, knocking pedestrians down like bowling pins and piling others up on the windshield.
Rojas’ uncles and brothers, who packed two benches at summations with his other family members, were seen bawling their eyes out and comforting one another as DeMarco recounted the suspect’s hallucinations in the years before the attacks.
During the trial, the Rojas’ relatives testified about noticing his mental state severely degrade following his discharge from the Navy in 2014, when they said he began acting erratic and paranoid.
His brother Wilmer Veras described Rojas’ suicidal ideation and deepening paranoia about the government spying on him. His uncle, Ramon Reyes, spoke of his nephew’s face “transforming” when he was experiencing delusions and said he had been on medication since childhood.
Two psychiatrists who testified for the defense said Rojas’ psychosis had affected his ability to perceive reality. Weill Cornell psychiatrist Ziv Cohen said a chemical imbalance in his brain caused his delusions.
The doctors said Rojas’ underlying mental illness was the source of his murderous actions and that smoking marijuana the morning of the attacks likely worsened his already fragile mental state.
Judge Conviser said he would instruct the jury on the law and order them to begin deliberating on Tuesday, citing the long weekend and concerns about COVID-19.
If found guilty, Rojas faces life in prison.
