A Manhattan grand jury has indicted two teenagers in the December stabbing death of a 17-year-old boy who immigrated to New York City from Venezuela with his family and was attacked on the street in the Financial District, according to prosecutors and court records.
The defendants are accused of assaulting Yeremi Colina during an argument near John and Nassau streets just before 8 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2024. An indictment unsealed in Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court on Wednesday charges one of them with murder in the second degree and both of them with gang assault.
Their listed attorneys did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment Thursday morning. A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said the teen charged with murder, who is 17, was remanded back into custody after a court appearance Wednesday and has another court date next Tuesday. He was arrested Wednesday morning in Lower Manhattan, while his alleged 16-year-old accomplice was arrested there on Dec. 24, police said.
NYPD officials have said they did not believe the suspects knew Colina or an 18-year-old he was with at the time of the stabbing. Colina was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital after being stabbed in the chest with a knife.
Yeremi Colina, 17, in a photo provided by his mother.
He had been living at the Roosevelt Hotel migrant shelter in Midtown with his mother and five siblings, his family previously told Gothamist. His mother, Beritza Colina, said they came to the city in December 2023 after traveling from Venezuela through the treacherous Darien Gap and being bussed from Texas.
Colina was an avid soccer player who helped take care of his siblings and worked to make ends meet while the family made their way to the United States, according to his mother. She said he saved his then-9-year-old brother from drowning in a river during their journey.
On the day he was killed, he took his siblings to school, returned to the hotel-shelter to have breakfast with his mother and met with a social worker who was assisting him with switching schools, Beritza said.
“As a mom, they killed me with him,” she told Gothamist in December. “It’s horrible to feel like I’m still looking for him. I call his phone and he doesn’t respond.”
This is a developing story and may be updated.
