A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder in the stabbing death of a younger teen during a February brawl at a Queens McDonald’s, prosecutors said.
The teen suspect – who has not been identified because he is a minor – was nabbed Thursday afternoon in connection to the broad-daylight Valentine’s Day melee that left Julian Corniell, 14, with deadly stab wounds inside the fast food joint on Queens Boulevard near 38th Street, according to cops and the Queens DA’s office.
The arrested teen was ordered held without bail during his Thursday appearance before Supreme Court Justice Bruna DiBiase.
The fatal clash erupted around 3:25 p.m. when teens from different high schools gathered at the Sunnyside eatery, and a brawl erupted between two rival groups, prosecutors said.
During the fracas, the older teen allegedly stabbed Corniell in the left side of his torso with a knife, according to the DA’s office.
Corniell – who earlier in the day planned to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for his “little girlfriend,” according to his mom – ran from the eatery mortally wounded.
He crossed Queens Boulevard, collapsed on the street and was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he died from his injuries, prosecutors and cops said.
“I’m very sad that this happened to him in that way and I was not able to help it,” Corniell’s mother, Julia Verona, told The Post last month. “He didn’t deserve to die that way. He didn’t. He didn’t.”
The 16-year-old marks the second person arrested in connection to Corniell’s death, police said.
A 14-year-old boy was arrested hours after the fight and charged with gang assault, authorities said.
“I don’t know how they look like, I don’t know their names, I don’t know where those kids are coming from. I don’t know, because we live in Jamaica, which is very far from Sunnyside,” the slain boy’s mother said at the time. “I don’t know how my son ended up over there.”
Corniell was a freshman at Hillcrest High School who had a history of being bullied, which made him “afraid of going out alone,” his mom said.
He was “brilliant” and “a very fun little boy,” who loved to play video games and soccer, Verona recalled.
“I feel very destroyed. I don’t know what to do. I am a single mother of four kids. Julian was my only boy. He was only 14,” she said. “All my kids are very destroyed with this news.”
Now, the 16-year-old suspect — who was also charged with manslaughter and gang assault — could spend 25 years to life behind bars in connection to the slaying, according to prosecutors.
“Any homicide is heartbreaking for the family of the victim,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “This death in particular is tragic because of the ages of all involved.”
“Teenagers as defendants and teenagers as victims sends a message that we need to do more,” she added. “The attack on Julian Corniell was made even more tragic because it happened, as alleged, at the hands of a fellow teen. A grand jury has now returned serious charges against the defendant and my office will seek justice.”
