January 12, 2024
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced today that a Mount Vernon man was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in state prison for the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Sleepy Hollow father of two, Manuel Salazar.
DA Rocah said: “This senseless act of gun violence took away a father and husband leaving a family devastated. We must be vigilant in our fight to keep guns out of the hands of people who use them for harm.”
The defendant, Emmanuel Valentin Perez, 21, pleaded guilty on Aug. 17 to Manslaughter in the First Degree and Assault in the Second Degree, both felonies. He will be subject to five years of post-release supervision.
On June 28, 2021, at approximately 9:32 p.m., the defendant, who was 18 at the time of the incident, used a Lorcin pistol to shoot the victim once in the abdomen during a confrontation at Margotta Courts Park in Sleepy Hollow. The victim was transported to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where he was pronounced dead. The defendant’s gunshot also wounded a second victim, who was taken to the hospital, treated and released.
An investigation conducted by the Sleepy Hollow Police Department, with assistance from the Tarrytown Police Department, the Westchester County Department of Public Safety, the FBI’s Westchester Safe Streets Task Force and the Greenburgh Drug and Alcohol Task Force, utilized surveillance video, ballistics evidence and witness interviews to recover the loaded gun and identify the defendant as the shooter. The defendant was arrested outside of his Mount Vernon home on June 29, 2021.
In a victim impact statement to the court, the victim’s wife stated: “Imagine waking up the next day and telling your kids they will never be able to see, hear, touch, talk, or hug their dad again. Manuel was the most loving husband.... Losing him has changed my life forever.”
The case was before Judge James McCarty in Westchester County Court and prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Catalina Blanco Buitrago, with assistance from Counsel John O’Rourke and Senior Felony Counsel Perry Perrone, all of the Trials and Investigations Division.
