A mentally ill man who shoved his girlfriend in front of a subway train last year was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in prison.
Christian Valdez, 36, had previously pleaded guilty to shoving the victim in front of a downtown No. 3 train at Fulton St. station on March 9, 2024. The 29-year-old woman survived the incident, but both her legs were amputated.
“Christian Valdez will serve nearly two decades in prison following his conviction for committing a life-threatening act of domestic violence in our transit system,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a press release.
Valdez and the victim were arguing on the platform for the No. 2 and 3 trains before he shoved her in front of the approaching subway, according to Valdez’s own admissions and surveillance video from the platform.
Emergency responders pulled the woman from the train and rushed her to a local hospital. In addition to needing both legs amputated, she also suffered rib fractures and a blood clot in her lungs.
Valdez initially fled to New Jersey and spoke with family members, but he returned to New York City shortly afterward and was arrested wearing the same clothes he wore during the attack.
Family members said Valdez suffered from schizophrenia and had been in and out of various hospitals across the previous 18 years.
“He always took his medicine, but he stopped,” Valdez’s niece told the Daily News after last year’s attack. “He said he was taking it, but he wasn’t. He was anxious and worried.”
Valdez also has an extensive history of run-ins with law enforcement. At the time of the shove, he was on parole for a 2017 stabbing in which he wounded a Bronx woman and her 4-year-old daughter.
In that case, Valdez was sentenced to 8 years behind bars, but he was paroled in January 2023. One of the conditions of his parole was wearing an ankle monitor, but he cut it off one day before he shoved his girlfriend in front of the subway.
Originally Published:
