The father of a man who fatally stabbed a local basketball player was sentenced for creating an Instagram profile to harass and intimidate witnesses against his son, prosecutors said.
Steve Darbasie, a 44-year-old salesman, was sentenced Monday to six months behind bars after he very publicly went after witnesses on an anonymous but easily traceable social media profile in an apparent effort to protect his son Tammuz, according to authorities.
Darbasie had insisted his son was acting in self-defense when he stabbed Terrell Wigfall to death in Hell’s Kitchen in August 2020, according to prosecutors.
As his son’s case got closer to trial, Darbasie started naming witnesses and posting pictures of them sitting for police interviews on an anonymous social media profile he created, called “Ratzzzz,” according to a Monday statement from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Authorities arrested him in March 2023, and he was convicted more than a year later on three counts of witness tampering and two counts of intimidation.
“Steve Darbasie waged a relentless campaign of intimidation, using social media as a sword to both punish witnesses for speaking with police and attempt to prevent them from testifying about his son’s crime,” Bragg said in a statement.
“Honest testimony is the bedrock of our criminal legal system, and when witnesses are harassed and intimidated, our ability to hold accountable those who commit violent acts suffers,” he continued.
“We will not tolerate any such attempts, as I hope this trial conviction makes clear.”
Darbasie had claimed that Tammuz — then 21 years-old — pulled the knife to defend himself that day in August 2020, when he stabbed Wigfall on the corner of 11th Avenue and West 54th Street just after 10 p.m.
Wigfall, the father of a young daughter, was a junior at Bronx Community College and the leading scorer for the school’s basketball team, the Bronx Broncos.
Authorities rushed the young athlete to Mount Sinai West Hospital, but he died of his injuries several weeks later.
Tammuz, now 24, pleaded to a first-degree manslaughter charge in April 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison, according to the DA’s office and state prison records.
He will be eligible for early release in January.
His dad began posting video clips on the anonymous Instagram page around December 2022 that showed witnesses being interviewed by the cops — and identifying participants, Bragg said.
The posts — which included emojis of pigs and rats — came from police videos obtained by his son’s lawyer, the DA added.
The posts weren’t without consequence, authorities said.
Two days after his first post, someone shattered the rear windshield of one of the witnesses’ cars — as two of the witnesses sat inside.
One of them also received threatening texts calling her a “rat,” Bragg said.
Darbasie celebrated the intimidating attempts, and kept his account running until he was collared by the cops.
