KINGSTON – An Ellenville man has pleaded guilty to stabbing a good Samaritan who tried to pull him away from police making an arrest in New Paltz last year, the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.

Ulster County District Attorney Emmanuel C. Nneji said Dasany Naveo, 23, of Ellenville, pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault, a felony, before visiting Sullivan County Court Judge James Farrell.

According to Nneji, on Aug. 6, 2023, in the town of New Paltz, Naveo and others intervened when police officers attempted to make an arrest on Main Street.

Nneji said a bystander tried to pull Naveo away from police. Naveo then chased the bystander around a police patrol vehicle and stabbed him in the chest. The spectator had to be hospitalized.

Following an investigation by New Paltz police, the district attorney’s office and state police, charges of gang assault were filed against Naveo and three others.

The district attorney’s office clarified that “gang attack” does not mean that a gang is involved, only that two or more people are acting together in a criminal transaction.

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Nneji’s press release did not name other people accused of the gang attack.

“I am impressed and grateful that members of our community are increasingly taking positive action to stop blatant acts of violence that sometimes pose serious risk to them,” Nneji said in a statement. he said. “This is a wonderful message to our community and I encourage doing so from the safest distance possible… I offer my community gratitude and well wishes to the good Samaritan for his heroic effort to help and prevent what could otherwise have been a much worse situation . scenario.”

Naveo’s attorney, Thomas K. Petro, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Naveo is scheduled to be sentenced on January 10, 2025.

Mike Randall covers breaking news for the Times Herald-Record and Poughkeepsie Journal. Reach him at [email protected].

This article first appeared in the Times Herald-Record: Ellenville man pleads guilty in ‘good Samaritan’ stabbing