Man Pleads Guilty To Stabbing Queens Man To Death With Ice Pick

FAR ROCKAWAY, QUEENS — A man pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the eve of his trial for stabbing a Queens man to death with an ice pick in 2017, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Norbert Williams, a resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, faced charges that he knocked on the door of his victim's Far Rockaway apartment asking for help, then stabbed the man 30 times in the building's stairwell, according to the Queens district attorney's office.

Prosecutors said the attack left the victim, 47-year-old Joseph Smart, with a piece of the ice pick lodged in a stab wound in his back.

Reached by phone, defense lawyer Michael Siff declined to comment on the plea deal.

Williams, 55, had knocked on Smart's apartment door about 1:30 a.m. on June 18, 2017 and said he needed the man's help with a couple of guys who were bothering him, according to prosecutors.

Barefoot and wearing just an undershirt and shorts, Smart rushed into the stairwell to help his would-be attacker, who suddenly started stabbing him, prosecutors said.

Acting Queens District Attorney John M. Ryan said tests showed that the victim's blood was splattered on Williams' glasses and boots, calling the attack, "a rage-induced stabbing frenzy."

Williams is expected to receive a sentence of 24 years in prison, followed by five years' post-release supervision, according to prosecutors.