An illegal migrant from Colombia who strangled his Queens landlady after he failed to make good on rent was sentenced to more than two decades behind bars Friday for the vicious slaying, authorities said.
Davi Vidal, 20, was still a teenager in December 2023 when he killed 55-year-old Zoraida Leo with his bare hands and a cord from an iron, lashing out during a dispute over unpaid rent, The Post previously reported.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant sentenced Vidal to 22 ½ years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision, after he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter last month, prosecutors said.
“This defendant brutally attacked Zoraida Leo after a rent dispute and then callously left her to die on the floor of her own home,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement.
“No family should endure the loss of a loved one in such a cruel manner. We cannot undo this egregious harm, but with this sentence we have helped secure justice for Ms. Leo’s family.” --->READ MORE HERE
A renter charged with strangling his Queens landlady last year is a migrant from Colombia who was allowed into the US as an unaccompanied minor, sources said — as the victim’s outraged sister claimed authorities kept it quiet until it was too late.
Davi Vidal, 20, crossed the border illegally in San Luis, Arizona, in June 2022 when he was 17, and was allowed to remain in the country as an unescorted minor — standard practice for lone underage migrants who are freed into the country for “humanitarian reasons,” federal law enforcement sources said.
Sources said Vidal’s “US sponsor” was an aunt in Wisconsin. He was cut loose with a date for an immigration court hearing, though it was unclear when that hearing was scheduled for, according to the sources and records.
But on Dec. 7, 2023, Vidal was still free when he allegedly got into a rent dispute with his landlord, Zoraida Leo, 55, and attacked her, leaving her to die inside her building on 96th Street near Northern Boulevard in East Elmhurst, police said.
Only then did US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) place a detainer on the migrant.
“He’s a migrant who crossed the border illegally,” Maria Leo, the victim’s sister and a naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic, told The Post. “How is it that the federal government let this delinquent go, only for him to kill an innocent woman — my sister. Vidal is an assassin.
But more than a year later, on Dec. 4, 2023, Vidal was still free when he allegedly got into a dispute over unpaid rent with his landlady, Zoraida Leo, 55, and strangled her, leaving her dead inside her building on 96th Street near Northern Boulevard in East Elmhurst, police said.
According to prosecutors, Leo’s worried son found her body when he went to check on her the next day — with Vidal, weeping and scratched, still at the scene when cops got there.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed a detainer on Vidal on Dec. 7, 2023, after his arrest. He was indicted on a charge of murder in the second degree later that month.
“He’s a migrant who crossed the border illegally,” Maria Leo, the victim’s sister and a naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic, told The Post.
“How is it that the federal government let this delinquent go, only for him to kill an innocent woman — my sister? Vidal is an assassin,” she said. --->READ MORE HERE
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