c/o Citizen
The driver accused of speeding onto an Amsterdam Avenue sidewalk in May, killing two men and injuring three others, has been indicted on a raft of felony charges — including five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.
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Elvin Suarez, 61, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in the May crash at West 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, the Manhattan DA’s office announced Wednesday. The wreck killed Jason Negron, 46, a doorman at a West 110th Street building who had ended his shift two hours earlier, and Michael Saint-Hilaire, 35, an Upper East Side father of triplets who had been a longtime friend of Suarez’s.District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Suarez’s decision to allegedly drive drunk carried consequences that were “devastating and entirely preventable.” He added that his thoughts remain with the victims’ families and the three survivors as the case moves forward.
According to prosecutors, Suarez was driving north on Amsterdam Avenue while intoxicated and at high speed around 6 p.m. on May 15 when he clipped an empty parked car between West 107th and West 108th Streets. He continued through the 109th Street intersection, jumped a median dividing the bike lane from the roadway, and struck four pedestrians standing nearby before hitting an occupied parked vehicle and setting off a chain-reaction pileup. Suarez got out of his car and lay on the ground beside it at the direction of bystanders, prosecutors said.
Officers arriving minutes later found Negron unresponsive and pinned beneath Suarez’s vehicle, and Saint-Hilaire receiving CPR from a bystander. Both were later pronounced dead. Among the survivors, a 44-year-old man suffered an open fracture to his right leg, a 36-year-old man suffered back fractures, and the 51-year-old occupant of the struck vehicle was left with pain to his head, neck, and shoulder.
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The indictment charges Suarez with five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, a class B felony; two counts of second-degree manslaughter; three counts of aggravated vehicular assault; two counts of second-degree assault; one count of third-degree assault; and one count of aggravated driving while intoxicated.Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
