![\"Marcin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0023844f-614.jpg\"\/)
\nMarcin Pieciak appeared in court to receive his prison sentence<\/p>\n
A man has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for the manslaughter of Irish woman Sarah McNally at a bar in New York last year.<\/p>\n
Marcin Pieciak had been charged with murder, but agreed to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter last month.<\/p>\n
In court, the 38-year-old reaffirmed his guilt and said he accepted the sentence.<\/p>\n
He said he had no explanation for his actions, and said he thought about Ms McNally every day and what he had done.<\/p>\n
Addressing her family in Ireland, Pieciak said: “I know it’s too soon now, but I hope one day for forgiveness.”<\/p>\n
Sarah McNally, from Longford, was working in the Ceili House Bar in Maspeth, in the borough of Queens.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old had been in a relationship with Pieciak but had ended it and told him that she was returning to Ireland.<\/p>\n
On 20 March 2024, Pieciak went to the bar and attacked Ms McNally, who was working at the time.<\/p>\n
He stabbed her 19 times, causing severe injury to her neck, back and chest. She suffered damage to her carotid artery and her spine was severed.<\/p>\n
Pieciak attempted to stab himself with a second blade he had in his possession but was stopped by patrons in the pub who detained him until police arrived.<\/p>\n
\nMarcin Pieciak appeared in court to receive his prison sentence<\/p>\n
In court, he reaffirmed his guilt and accepted the sentence, but said he had no answers for Ms McNally’s family.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor said the video of the attack was one of the most shocking things he had seen.<\/p>\n
Judge Ushir Pandit-Durant agreed that it was one of the most shocking things she has seen in her years on the bench and as an assistant district attorney in the city.<\/p>\n
Judge Pandit-Durant pronounced the agreed sentence of 24 years in prison and five years’ post-release supervision.<\/p>\n
Sarah ‘was their future and this had been stolen’ – family statement<\/p>\n
Ms McNally’s family were not in court and the prosecutor read out a victim impact statement on their behalf.<\/p>\n
Her parents, Des and Dorrie, said they “had the honour of being Sarah’s parents for 41 years”.<\/p>\n
“Everyone loved” their daughter, she “was their future and this had been stolen from them”.<\/p>\n
The McNally\u2019s described Sarah as “Des\u2019s pride and joy, his one and only child”.<\/p>\n
This “bond grew deeper” as she became older, they added, describing her as “the Lisa Marie to his Elvis”.<\/p>\n
“Sarah and Dorrie shared a unique and close bond” too, the statement said, “like sisters and best friends as well as mother and daughter”.<\/p>\n
“As a family, we think about Sarah and talk about her every day.<\/p>\n
“She was so friendly and kind-hearted to everyone and because of that Sarah had so many friends.<\/p>\n
“Every single life Sarah touched, whether you were her parent, aunt, uncle, cousin, her friend, colleague or acquaintance, has been shattered.<\/p>\n
“We all thought we would get to see Sarah again, whether that was in Ireland or New York, it is hard to come to terms with the fact we never will.<\/p>\n
“Losing Sarah, especially in the circumstances we did, has been the most painful, gut-wrenching thing we have ever experienced and not something we will ever be able to get over.<\/p>\n
“We hope no family ever has to go through what we have went through and we pray for those who have,” the statement added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for the manslaughter of Irish woman Sarah McNally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-153086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}