Police

Update: Teens held following stabbing on Maple Avenue in Riverhead

The two teenagers arrested in connection with a violent stabbing in Riverhead Sunday night are both expected to go before a Suffolk County Grand Jury, according to Riverhead Town Justice Allen Smith, who presided over their arraignment Monday.

The grand jury would decide if the charges will be tried in a higher court, which could result in steeper penalties.

Michael Lozano-Bueno, 17, of Riverhead and Juan Jose Valencia Serna, 18, of Riverhead were charged with second-degree assault in regard to an assault on a 24-year-old man in a house on Maple Avenue in Riverhead Sunday night.

Mr. Serna was ordered held on $30,000 cash bail and Mr. Lozano-Bueno was ordered held on $35,000 cash bail. Both said they were not able to pay the amount ordered.

An order of protection was issued to both suspects, warning them to stay away from the victim.

They are both due back in court Friday.

Judge Smith said there was an immigration hold on Mr. Serna, and that a guilty verdict or plea on these charges would result in deportation.

Mr. Bueno has a legal “resident alien” status that would be revoked if he is found or pleads guilty to the charges he is facing, Judge Smith said.

Mr. Serna is accused of repeatedly stabbing the victim with a knife in the head, back, arm and hand, while Mr. Bueno broke a bottle over the victim’s head and repeatedly hit him in the head with the broken bottle, according to documents read in court Monday.

Mr. Serna said through an interpreter that he lives by himself on Ostrander Avenue in Riverhead and has lived there for about a year. He works as a carpenter and looks for employment in the parking lot of a local convenience store.

Mr. Bueno lives with his brother at the Maple Avenue home where the attack took place, and has lived there for two months, he said through an interpreter. Prior to that, he told the judge, he lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for a year and a half.

Mr. Bueno said he is employed at the Stop and Go Deli on West Main Street, where he has worked for four months.

Lane Bubka, an attorney who handled the case for Mr. Bueno in town court Monday, argued that his client is not a flight risk because he has employment and lives in the area with his brother.

Mr. Bueno also has a “potential self-defense argument to be raised,” Mr. Bubka said in court.

In addition to the assault charge, Mr. Bueno also faces a criminal personation charge from April 12 of this year, when he gave a false identification to a police officer on West Main Street.

Judge Smith said he wants to wait until more is known on the condition of the victim, who is at Stony Brook University Medical Center in stable condition but expected to survive, according to police.

Both suspects said in court they cannot afford an attorney and will use one supplied by the county.