Nicholas D’Agostino pleads guilty in the ‘execution style’ murder of Yusef Staine, 20, of West Babylon, court records show

A Yonkers man who shot his friend twice “execution style” while they were alone on a parked overnight LIRR train in Ronkonkoma pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Wednesday, moments before jury selection in his trial was set to begin, according to his defense attorney and court records.

Nicholas D’Agostino, 21, will serve 20 years to life in prison for killing Yusef Staine, 20, of West Babylon, under a plea offer from the judge in the case, attorney Keith O’Halloran. The Suffolk District Attorney’s Office confirmed the sentence.

The murder — which shocked Long Island — was the first killing on a Long Island Rail Road train in nearly 30 years, after a 1993 rampage by gunman Colin Ferguson killed six people at the Merillon Avenue Station and injured 19 others.

“This is a tragic situation on all accounts,” O’Halloran said in an emailed statement from him and cocounsel Tara Laterza, who were both appointed by the court. “Our client is a young man who has taken responsibility for his actions and, since the incident, has been working hard to be the best version of himself for when he completes his sentence and reenters society.”

O’Halloran said the plea offer was made by acting Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Steven Pilewski at the conclusion of a final pretrial hearing Tuesday. The offer stood until the pool of potential jurors entered the courtroom Wednesday morning, the attorney said.

As part of the agreement, D’Agostino also pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a firearm, according to O’Halloran. He had faced a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted at trial.

Prosecutors have said D’Agostino twice shot Staine in the early morning hours of Feb. 16, 2022, in a slaying captured on MTA surveillance video. He was arrested in Yonkers 15 months later after initially fleeing the state to Arizona, where he previously lived, prosecutors said at the time.

“[D’Agostino] shot Yusef Staine in the back of his head as he walked behind him in the train car,” Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Elena Tomaro told Pilewski at his arraignment in Riverhead in May 2023. “When Mr. Staine collapsed to the ground, [D’Agostino] put another round into his torso.”

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in May that D’Agostino became a suspect soon after the shooting, as investigators obtained search warrants for digital data and reviewed “hundreds of hours of video footage.” Tierney said D’Agostino used a ride share app to leave Ronkonkoma and took a Greyhound bus out of Port Authority terminal in New York City nearly 24 hours later.

Tomaro described the two men as friends, saying D’Agostino had traveled from Phoenix to visit Staine on Long Island three days earlier.

Prosecutors declined to share a motive at a press conference.

The MTA footage showed the two men traveled together to New York City with two other friends on Feb. 15, 2022, prosecutors previously said. They were returning alone to Wyandanch when they missed their stop early the next morning and boarded a westbound train that hadn’t yet left Ronkonkoma, where the shooting occurred shortly before 2 a.m. No other passengers were on board, authorities said.