{"id":982564,"date":"2026-08-05T15:27:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/982564\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:27:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:27:49","slug":"knife-wielding-robber-who-preyed-on-nyc-taxi-drivers-stabbing-1-gets-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/982564\/","title":{"rendered":"Knife-wielding robber who preyed on NYC taxi drivers, stabbing 1, gets 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

A knife-wielding scourge who robbed four taxi drivers<\/a> in Brooklyn and Queens, stabbing one of them in the process, got five years behind bars Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Choudary Virk, 22, targeted four cabbies over an eight-day stretch in February 2023, holding a knife to each driver\u2019s neck as he demanded cash. He pleaded guilty to a federal robbery charge in September, admitting to all four crimes.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Margo Brodie sentenced Virk to 60 months, followed by two years supervised release, ordering him to undergo outpatient drug treatment for his full-blown opioid addition.<\/p>\n

\"ChoudharyChoudhary Virk allegedly committed a string of four violent, knifepoint
\nrobberies of taxi drivers in Brooklyn and Queens in February 2023. Here, a cab driver who was stabbed multiple times, is pictured at a hospital on Feb. 25, 2023. (USDOJ \/ EDNY)<\/p>\n

Prosecutors were asking for seven to nine years,<\/a> while Virk\u2019s lawyer argued he should be sentenced to time served for the nearly three years he\u2019s already spent on Rikers Island and in Brooklyn MDC.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me the money or I\u2019ll kill you,\u201d Virk told his first victim on Feb. 17, 2023, after he had the hack take him from Sunset Park to Brighton Beach. He took $150 and ran off.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 20, 2023, he took a cab from Brighton Beach to Jamaica, then held a knife to the driver\u2019s neck and made off with $450.<\/p>\n

Five days later, on Feb. 25, Virk cabbed it from Gravesend to Jamaica, and again pulled out a knife and put it to the driver\u2019s neck. But the cabbie said he only had $50, which he handed over, then tried to hit Virk with a bottle to defend himself. Virk responded by repeatedly stabbing the driver in the arm and back, with one wound needing six stitches to close.<\/p>\n

Virk then got another cab to pick him up around the corner from the stabbing, then robbed that driver at knifepoint, too, stealing $60 and the victim\u2019s dashcam.<\/p>\n

\"ChoudharyChoudhary Virk (pictured) allegedly committed a string of four violent, knifepoint
\nrobberies of taxi drivers in Brooklyn and Queens in February 2023. Here, Virk is pictured shortly before putting a knife to a cab driver’s neck and demanding money on Feb. 25, 2023. (USDOJ \/ EDNY)<\/p>\n

Virk\u2019s lawyer, David Gray, said his client committed the robberies out of desperation, while in the throes of a full-blown opioid addiction at age 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a very tragic but brief window of desperate behavior on the part of my client,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

Virk, who came to Brooklyn from Pakistan at age 12, was essentially forced into indentured servitude by his uncle, the attorney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife in Brooklyn was bleak,\u201d Gray wrote in a sentencing memo<\/a>. \u201cInstead of going to school, and benefiting from the social and emotional adjustment it would have provided, for the next three years young Mr. Virk was forced to work at Hot Bagel, a deli owned by his uncle\u2019s son, alongside his two older brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He lived in his uncle\u2019s basement, forbidden to leave without permission, gave up all of his $12-an-hour wages to his uncle, who frequently beat him, Gray wrote. Three years later, he was finally allowed to go to high school, where he was introduced to Percocet and soon became addicted to the painkiller, Gray said.<\/p>\n

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kamil Ammari agreed that the court should take Virk\u2019s youth and his drug addiction into account, but pointed out, \u201cWhatever the defendant\u2019s motivation in committing these crimes, none of that makes it any easier to be held at knifepoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ammari also pointed out that Virk committed several infractions while locked up in MDC Brooklyn, including fights with inmates, plus a March 1, 2025, incident where he yelled at a correction officer, \u201cI know your family! I\u2019m gonna catch you outside and shoot you in the head! I know where you are from!\u201d because his meal was late, and a May 9 jail phone call when he was recorded acknowledging that he was shaking down his cellmate for cash.<\/p>\n

Virk apologized to the victims, the court, his family and his lawyers Tuesday, and said that being jailed likely saved his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had two times overdosed,\u201d he said, \u201cand if I had three times I could have died.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A knife-wielding scourge who robbed four taxi drivers in Brooklyn and Queens, stabbing one of them in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":982565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,47735,394367,64276,394366,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,394365,13894,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-982564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-armed-robbery","tag-cab-robberies","tag-drug-addiction","tag-knifepoint-robbery","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-taxi","tag-percocet","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117043611545801981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/982565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}