NEW YORK — A Maine man who admitted killing three police officers with a machete in a terrorist attack near New York’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve 16 months ago was sentenced Thursday to 27 years in prison in a cop-packed courtroom.
Trevor Bickford’s sentencing in Manhattan federal court came after Judge P. Kevin Castel listened to emotional statements from the three police officers who attacked Bickford about two hours before midnight on December 21, 2022, as the officers screened New Year’s partygoers for the only access to an otherwise closed-off Times Square.
Bickford shouted “Allahu akbar” – the Arabic phrase for “God is great” – before hitting the officers on the head with the machete and trying to grab an officer’s weapon. One officer suffered a skull fracture.
The threat ended when Officer Michael shot Hanna Bickford in the shoulder. At a hospital, Bickford told authorities that he had studied radical Islamic ideology and decided to wage jihad against American officials.
The judge cited the 20-year-old Bickford’s age and history of mental illness as reasons for leniency under federal sentencing guidelines that recommended a life sentence. Prosecutors had sought a 50-year prison sentence, while the defense had recommended a 10-year sentence.
He also told how Bickford’s mother had repeatedly sought help from police and hospitals as she watched her son spiral into mental illness, including schizoaffective bipolar disorder and depressive syndrome with symptoms of depression, mania and psychosis, including grandiosity and hallucinations .
The judge said Bickford told mental health professionals 20 days before the New Year’s Eve attack that he had a plan to harm others, that he intended to act on that plan and that he wanted to carry out a jihadist attack .
“I’m not a medical person, not here to judge the medical people who saw this and met him, but it’s disturbing to read this data,” Castel said. “If his mother had been listened to, if her instincts had been listened to, if the medical profession had been able to look at things a little differently, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
When Bickford was given the opportunity to speak, he apologized to the officers he harmed and other witnesses to his crime.
“I understand that I have been left with scars, both physically and mentally,” he said. “My mental illness took me down a dark path.”
Hanna, the first officer to speak during the sentencing, recalled the attack, saying he had just bowed his head slightly when he “saw a big knife sweep next to my head” and turned to see Bickford chasing him with a machete which contained a knife. 13-inch blade.
“As he got closer, I grabbed my firearm and fired one round, which immediately struck the suspect. He fell to the ground,” Hanna said.
The officer said his parents emigrated from the Middle East 20 years ago “to escape this kind of thing.”
Officer Louis Lorio said he could barely stay conscious after a large gash on his scalp that night required seven stitches.
Now, he said, he suffers from migraines several days a week and will likely be forced to retire after a decade-long police career as he deals with anxiety and depression that leave him “involuntarily in bursts out crying’ or cripples him. with waves of sadness. Therapy, however, has helped, he added.
Officer Paul Cozzolino, who graduated from the police academy just a day before the attack, said physical pain, like headaches, will last forever. He choked up as he said the part he will “cherish forever” was when he went home to his family that night.
Attorney Marisa Cabrera said her client, who is “deeply remorseful,” comes from a family with a “strong and proud military background,” including two grandparents who served in the U.S. Navy, a brother currently in the military and a younger brother who plans to join in.
Bickford also wanted to join the military before mental illness became prevalent, she said.
Now, she said, “Bickford has returned to his old self with the help of medication and treatment.”
However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaylan Lasky urged the judge to ignore Bickford’s “self-serving claims” of rehabilitation, especially because he could return to his previous state of mind if he ever stopped taking his medication.
She said he “should not be given another opportunity to kill Americans” after he “wounded, maimed and terrorized innocent New Yorkers.”
The judge ordered that after Bickford gets out of prison, authorities will monitor his internet use and other facets of his existence for the rest of his life.
