Accused “Duck Sauce Killer” Glenn Hirsch texted “bring your 9mm” to his estranged wife before he killed himself in 2022, Queens prosecutors said at the start of her trial Monday.
Dorothy Hirsch, who faces weapons possession charges, allegedly received the text from the accused killer as he stood accused of murder for allegedly gunning down Chinese food delivery man Zhiwen Yan in Forest Hills on April 30, 2022 – because his restaurant shorted him on duck sauce.
But her lawyer said the text was to her brother – and said Glenn Hirsch, not his client, is the one on trial.
“This case is about punishing Ms. Hirsch for the alleged sins of her husband,” defense attorney Mark Bederow said as the non-jury trial opened in Queens Supreme Court.
“If she was not married to Glenn Hirsch, not subject to his years of abuse, that there would be no prosecution here,” Bederow said.
Glenn Hirsch was facing murder charges in Yan’s death when he shot himself on Aug. 5, 2022.
Police later found eight guns stashed in his wife’s apartment, and charged her with illegal weapons possession a month after her ex killed himself.
He left behind a suicide note claiming his wife didn’t know about the guns in her apartment.
“It was a total of eight illegal pistols and over 400 rounds of ammunition that were inside this defendant’s apartment that she owned and lived in alone,” Assistant District Attorney Kanella Georgopolos said during opening statements at the trial on Monday.
“In the closet where the guns were found she kept her toilet paper, her hand soap and other household items,” Georgopolos said. “The September text was from her brother. She responded, ‘OK.'”
Prosecutors have conceded that Dorothy Hirsch’s fingerprints and DNA were not on the guns – but maintained that she had sole control of the weapons kept at her home.
The DA’s office has also said that the gun that killed Yan was not part of the cache.
Glenn Hirsch was charged with killing Yan because of an ongoing beef with the Great Wall restaurant on Queens Boulevard where he worked.
The feud started when he flipped out over a lack of duck sauce with his order, authorities said.
Surveillance footage released by police captured Hirsch circling the restaurant about an hour before the shooting, and it was revealed he had allegedly threatened the staff at the eatery more than once in the past.
Yan was shot once in the chest as he made food deliveries on the night of his death.
The married father of three migrated from China 20 years earlier.