NEW YORK (QDAO) – Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Thomas Saxton was sentenced today to seven years in prison for pulling a gun in Cohen’s Children Medical Center and threatening to kill his wife as she held their 2-year-old, who had just been discharged from surgery. Responding officers recovered two loaded guns, ammunition and cocaine from Saxton at the scene of the February 2022 incident.
District Attorney Katz said: “Armed and angry, the defendant turned a place of healing and hope into one of fear and despair. Families need to trust that a children’s hospital is a safe haven. We will not relent in our efforts to get illegal guns and those who use them off our streets.”
Saxton, 36, of Baisley Avenue in East Rockaway, pleaded guilty in October to criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice David Kirschner, who today sentenced the defendant to seven years in prison and four years post-release supervision.
According to the charges:
- On February 17, 2022, shortly after noon, Saxton arrived at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Glen Oaks and confronted his 37-year-old wife as she held their 2-year-old child in her arms. Saxton was to pick them up after the child’s surgery.
- Saxton pointed a gun at his wife and said, in sum and substance, that he would kill her in front of everyone present. When the woman yelled for help, Saxton hid the firearm and left.
- Minutes later, Saxton called his wife’s cell phone. The woman had the call on speaker with hospital staff present when Saxton threatened to kill her as she slept. Police were notified.
- Responding officers found Saxton sitting in his car in the hospital parking lot with two loaded ghost guns — a 10 mm pistol and a 9 mm pistol — ammunition for both firearms, a loaded magazine and a bag of cocaine. Saxton was arrested at the scene.
- Additional firearms were recovered from the defendant’s home, for which Saxton is being prosecuted by the Nassau County District Attorney.
