Heartbroken widow of slain NYC fruit vendor speaks out: ‘What happened to my husband is an injustice’
By Tomas E. Gaston, Anna Young,
24 days ago
The heartbroken widow of a longtime Bronx fruit vendor who was beaten to death with a baseball bat during an unprovoked attack earlier this month said what happened to her husband is an “injustice.”
Maciel Vasquez, in an exclusive interview with The Post, described her husband Leslie Sanchez, 56, as an honest and hard-working man who never interfered with anyone.
“What happened to my husband is an injustice,” the mother of three told the Post on Thursday. “My husband was a good man. He wasn’t a problematic person.”
“I am asking the police and the governor to please do their job.”
Her husband’s alleged attackers, Romel Jarrett, 37, and Terrence Downes, 44, were arrested a day before Sanchez’s death and charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault.
The charges could be upgraded when they are arraigned on a new indictment Oct. 15, the Bronx DA’s Office said.
The widow and mother of three said her husband was a honest, hard-working man. Tomas E.Gaston
Jarrett and Downes allegedly wrestled Sanchez to the ground and bashed him in the head with a baseball bat at his selling spot on East Fordham Road near the Grand Concourse in Morris Heights around 7:40 p.m. Sept. 12, according to authorities and a criminal complaint.
Sanchez was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in critical condition, and succumbed to his injuries on Sept. 14, police said.
Law enforcement sources described the attack as unprovoked, but added that a witness reported seeing the attackers involved in a spat with the vendor.
“When I heard a street vendor was attacked on the street, I never thought it would have been him,” family friend and former neighbor Autumn Pearson told The Post Wednesday.
Sanchez was beaten to death with a baseball bat.
Sanchez was beaten so badly that a fedora-like hat was placed on him in his coffin to hide the damage done from the brutal assault, Pearson said.
He has since been cremated.
Sanchez succumbed to his injuries on Sept. 14
Sanchez and his wife had two boys and a girl, the youngest son only a baby, Pearson said.
“My children are missing him so much and they are speaking to him through his photos,” Vasquez said.
“No one understands the damage that they did to me or my children.”
According to law enforcement sources, the attack was unprovoked. Sanchez and his wife had two boys and a girl, the youngest son only a baby. Tomas E.Gaston Suspects Terrence Downes (pictured) and Romel Jarrett allegedly beat Sanchez to death with a baseball bat at his selling spot n East Fordham Road near the Grand Concourse in Morris Heights. Corrections
Romel has two prior arrests, one for third-degree assault last month in the Bronx, and the other for a May 2022 petit larceny in the same borough, cops said.
Downes was most recently busted for criminal possession of a controlled substance in East Harlem in 2018 — but his rap sheet also includes an attempted murder bust from December 2002 in Brooklyn, cops said.
He was nabbed in 2001 for a Brooklyn assault, and faced another drug possession bust in Brooklyn two years earlier, authorities said.
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