Queens man arrested: As Trump faces felony charges, Queens goes about its daily life

Former President – and former Queens man – Donald Trump was arraigned on a 34-count felony indictment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. AP photo by Seth Wenig/Pool

By Ryan Schwach

As the country waited in anticipation for former President – and former Queens man – Donald Trump to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday, the borough where he spent his early years went about its daily lives.

While Trump was becoming the first former president in the 246-year history of the U.S. ever to be arraigned on felony charges, Queens residents ate Mexican food on Steinway Street, walked their dogs in Francis Lewis Park and took scheduled flights in and out of LaGuardia Airport, even as the former Jamaica Estates resident’s own private plane prepared to take him back to his current home in Florida.

On Tuesday, Trump was arraigned in Manhattan, pleading not guilty to 34-counts of falsifying business records in order to cover up hush money payments made in 2017 to porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly had a sexual relationship with in 2006.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump, said that the former president and his former attorney, Michael Cohen, participated in an illegal “catch and kill scheme” to suppress the encounter with Daniels during his 2016 bid for the U.S. presidency. Because the fraudulent records were made to allegedly cover up the scheme, Bragg bumped the misdemeanor charges up to felonies.

“These are felony crimes in New York State no matter who you are, we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct,” Bragg said Tuesday after the arraignment.

“The participants' scheme was illegal,” he added. “The scheme violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.”

Though the defendant was far from the usual accused criminal walking through the Manhattan courthouse’s doors, Bragg said Tuesday following the arraignment that the charges were some of the most common brought by his office when prosecuting business crimes.

“My office...has charged hundreds of felony falsifying business records,” he said. “This charge..is the bread and butter of our white collar work."

Former President Donald Trump’s motorcade travels into Astoria on Tuesday, April 4, after his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court. Photo by Walter Karling

Over the East River and into the World’s Borough, Queens residents told the Eagle what they thought of their former neighbor’s historic arraignment.

In Jamaica Estates, where Trump spent the first 13 years of his life, some residents said knowing the real estate developer and his family before they entered into the national spotlight gave them an advantage at the ballot box.

“He probably didn't win the neighborhood,” said Simon Fitzgerald, who lives just across the street from Trump’s boyhood home. “I think the people that know him around here know better.”

Fitzgerald said the realtors who sold him his home mentioned that Trump lived on the block when he moved in, but he added that Trump’s association with the neighborhood mostly stopped there.

“I don't feel like his presence really haunts this neighborhood anymore,” he said. “I think he's done plenty to deserve an indictment, but I'll let the process play out.”

But others, particularly those who voted for the Republican, are not yet ready to shun the former commander in chief from his hometown.

​​“You consider it the neighborhood that Trump grew up in,” said Bruce R., a 76-year-old attorney.

Regardless of his political beliefs, Bruce wasn’t ready to weigh in on the most-anticipated court appearance in decades happening just one borough away.

“I'm not making moral judgements,” he said. “Because then I'd have to make moral judgments on others, and it's not for me to judge…I don't know why he paid [Stormy Daniels], maybe he paid to protect his marriage? I have no idea. I don't even know if he's guilty.”

In Whitestone, an area that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020, residents told the Eagle that Trump’s association with Queens brought them a sense of pride.

“When I talk to my neighbors, he’s well known, his name is always mentioned everywhere,” said Nellie Boyer who was walking her dog Dragon in Francis Lewis Park at the foot of the Whitestone Bridge.

Nellie Boyer, a Whitestone resident who supported Trump in 2020, says Donald Trump will always be a Queens man. Photo by Noah Powelson

Boyer voted for Trump in 2020, and thinks he has retained his Queens reputation even after establishing Florida as his home state. She also dismissed Bragg’s indictment of Trump as a political attack without teeth.

But with the exception of having to rearrange her schedule slightly on Tuesday, Trump’s arraignment meant little to Boyer.

“I am working from home today because I was worried about the traffic,” she said. “I knew it was going to be very hectic in Manhattan today.”

On busy Steinway Street, lifelong Queens resident David Soto said he doesn’t think Trump has kept with the values of the World’s Borough.

“I just feel like he’s totally detached from any bit of neighborhood there is,” he said. “Queens is engrained with a lot of different people from different cultures and I don’t see him being in touch with any of those groups of people.”

“I don’t think he represents any of what Queens stands for,” he added.

Soto spoke with the Eagle just as Trump arrived at the courthouse, already surrounded by hundreds of journalists and observers.

“I think it's all a show,” he said. “They are just going to go through the process, and then it's all going to die, like it never happened.”

“But I think that if he did break the law, he should be held accountable like everybody else,” he added.

David Soto, a lifelong Queens resident, says Donald Trump, who was raised in Jamaica Estates, doesn’t represent the borough’s values. Photo by Noah Powelson

Like Soto, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards told the Eagle that Trump’s early years aren’t enough to qualify him as a man of Queens.

“The indicted, disgraced, defeated, twice-impeached former president and the values — or lack thereof — he promotes are antithetical to everything Queens is and stands for,” Richards said. “Regardless of where he grew up, he doesn’t deserve to be associated with the greatness of The World’s Borough.”

“In this borough, we embrace our immigrant neighbors while he vilifies them,” he added. “We celebrate our diversity while he fans the flames of hate. And we will never allow Queens to be defined by someone who actively defiles our foundational principles of unity and community.”

But while most Queens residents likely have a thought to share on the former president, at least one will have to keep his opinions to himself for many years to come.

That man is Juan Merchan, who became the first judge to read aloud felony charges against a former president on Tuesday. Though he was born in Colombia, Merchan grew up in Jackson Heights.

The judge will preside over the case after having served in Manhattan Criminal Court since 2009 after having begun his legal career in the Manhattan DA’s office.

Merchan did not pass down a gag order on the former president Tuesday, but did warn against inciting language from Trump, and said that he expects Trump to be present in court like any other defendant.

But that won’t be for a while, Merchan said. Trump is expected to be called back to the Centre Street courthouse sometime by December 2023 or January 2024.

Until then, Flushing’s Main Street will remain crowded and filled with the scents of Asian cuisine, the Unisphere will be surrounded by tourists and locals eating ice cream and the Rockaway Beach boardwalk will be home to streams of couples, walking as the nearby waves crash into the sand – just as it all was on Tuesday.

Additional reporting by Noah Powelson, Sabrina Salovitz and Victoria Kempter.