A 67-year-old man who fatally shot a would-be mugger during a robbery gone wrong has been jailed for four years.
Charles Foehner, from Queens, New York, appeared stone-faced as he arrived at Queens County Criminal Court Thursday morning for sentencing.
Foehner, a retired doorman, was walking to a parking garage outside his Queens apartment when the alleged mugger lunged at him with a sharp object about 2am on May 31, 2023.
The suspected robber, identified as 32-year-old Cody Gonzalez, demanded money during the late-night exchange, prompting Foehner to whip out a firearm and fatally blast the assailant.
It later emerged that Gonzalez, who had more than a dozen prior arrests, was not armed during the altercation. Instead, he was holding a pen.
After killing Gonzalez on the spot, Foehner was charged with 26 counts of criminal possession of a weapon, but did not receive any charges related to the fatal shooting.
The entire confrontation was captured by a surveillance camera in a driveway outside Foehner’s apartment building in the quiet neighborhood of Kew Gardens in Queens, where he had lived with his wife, Jenny Speed.
Chilling video footage of the ordeal showed Gonzalez approach Foehner down the driveway before shots were fired from a distance of about eight feet.
Charles Foehner (right, seen here with his lawyer) will serve four years in prison as part of a plea deal after gunning down a would-be mugger during a robbery gone wrong outside his Queens apartment
Foehner whipped out a firearm and fatally shot the suspected robber, identified as 32-year-old Cody Gonzalez, during a late-night confrontation in May 2023
It later emerged that Gonzalez, who had more than a dozen prior arrests, was not armed during the altercation
After obtaining a search warrant, investigators later recovered more than two dozen firearms, which included pistols, shotguns, rifles, three assault rifles, an AK47, 153 loaded high-capacity magazines, and two body armor vests in Foehner’s apartment – despite him only having a license for five rifles.
At the time, he told authorities that he was carrying an illegal pistol, which he used to shoot Gonzalez in the chest in self-defense, citing the rising crime rates in New York City as his justification.
‘I pulled the gun out of my pocket,’ he told prosecutors at the time, referring to his .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver.
‘It didn’t go off accidentally. I pulled the trigger. I emptied the revolver. Last night I was carrying a firearm because of the crime in the city…I’ve had it since the 1990s. I obtained it in a bar one night. The firearms are mine and mine alone.’
He later told detectives that collecting firearms was his hobby.
