A Yonkers man accused of killing his friend “execution-style” on a Long Island Rail Road train in 2022 pleaded guilty Wednesday just before his trial was set to begin.
Nicholas D’Agostino, 21, copped to one count of second-degree murder in the killing of Yusef Staine inside an LIRR train parked at Suffolk County’s Ronkonkoma station, Newsday reported. He’ll be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Staine, 20 at the time, had been hanging out with D’Agostino throughout the day on Feb. 15, 2022, and into the early morning hours of the next day, according to investigators.
The two young men spent the day in New York City before traveling back to Long Island. They stepped onto a westbound train at Ronkonkoma station at around 2 a.m. on Feb. 16.
Inside the train, the men got into an apparent argument, according to surveillance footage. The argument concluded when D’Agostino shot Staine once in the back of the head and again in the torso, authorities said.
D’Agostino then used a rideshare app to flee the scene and boarded a Greyhound bus out of Manhattan about 24 hours later, according to police. He eventually made his way to Arizona, and wasn’t captured until May 2023.
The murder of Staine shocked the Long Island community. No one had been killed onboard an LIRR train since December 1993, when mass shooter Colin Ferguson killed six people and wounded 19 more as a train arrived at Merillon Avenue station.
