A Hicksville man was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years to life in prison for stabbing a gas station attendant to death and stealing cash and phone cards nine months ago.
Jose Luis Turcios Banegas
Jose Luis Turcios Banegas, 25, had pleaded guilty before a Nassau County judge to first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon on Sept. 18.
Turcios Banegas entered the BP gas station on Broadway in Hicksville and stabbed the attendant, Dharam Paul, multiple times in the back before stealing cash and phone cards in the early morning hours of Feb. 17—all of which was caught on the store’s surveillance camera, Nassau prosecutors said.
Turcios Banegas was arrested 10 days later. Paul, a Valley Stream resident, was working at the store to support his family in his native India, prosecutors said.
“This was a brutal and cold-blooded killing of an unarmed man, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that this defendant serves every last minute of his sentence,” Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement. “I hope that today’s sentence brings some sense of closure to Mr. Paul’s family.”
