A man who served six months in jail for sucker-punching a Brooklyn fruit stand manager in June 2017, leaving him in a coma, was charged with manslaughter Wednesday — nearly a year after the victim succumbed to his injuries, police said.
Gary Anderson is facing fresh manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges for clocking 38-year-old father and husband Domingo Tapia in the face.
The victim was riding his bike along Fulton St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant when he was punched off his ride near Albany Ave. on his way home from work.
Anderson, now 34, hit Tapia at random in a fit of anger after storming away from a quarrel with three men. He had a job teaching sports to kids at a YMCA at the time.
“I want justice. Whatever time he (already) served in jail is not enough for Domingo’s life. He eventually died,” the victim’s widow Esther Diaz told the Daily News Wednesday.
Tapia suffered a fractured skull and spent seven years in a coma following the unprovoked attack. He died last March.
Police initially believed Tapia was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. But a video viewed later by cops captured the shocking assault.
Cops arrested Anderson shortly after the attack. He was convicted of felony assault and sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities said he was back on the street six months later.
“He should get the maximum,” Diaz said of the new charges and the sentence they could bring. “It does not matter for how many years he goes to jail, it’s not going to bring my husband back. The pain of my kids being without father is not going to go away.”
Tapia’s grieving family has been demanding that Anderson face upgraded charges ever since their family patriarch died.
“The kids have still not been able to understand the situation fully,” his wife said a day after Tapia’s death.
“Thanks to (Anderson), my kids don’t have someone to support them … to support the family.”
Tapia’s long coma forced Diaz to raise their boys without a father while working overtime to make up for the loss of income, she said.
“The kids try to heal but they are too young,” she said Wednesday. “They still miss their father too much.”