Geoffrey Radbill, c/o Bowling Green State University
Police have arrested the driver who struck and killed a 78-year-old Upper West Side man as he rode his bicycle on Riverside Drive last December, but he wasn’t held in jail.
Lesnier Ortega Varona, 38, was picked up at his Bronx home on Wednesday, October 7, and charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian, police told the NY Post. Varona, who has no previous arrests, was released with a desk appearance ticket, meaning he was let go with an order to appear in court at a later date.
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The charge comes nearly 10 months after the death of Geoffrey Radbill, a longtime Upper West Side resident. As we reported in December, Radbill was riding north on Riverside Drive near West 158th Street in Washington Heights at around 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2025, when a silver 2021 Toyota sedan hit him from behind. He was taken to Harlem Hospital with serious injuries and died.Varona stayed at the scene and wasn’t charged at the time. The NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad followed up on the case and brought the charges Wednesday, police told the Daily News. Sources told the Post that investigators later determined there was criminality on Varona’s part and sought to arrest him.
Radbill retired in 2004 as senior vice president and chief operating officer at AXA-Equitable after 36 years with the company, according to his Bowling Green State University bio. Outside of work, his philanthropy included the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and his bio notes he spent his time enjoying New York City, traveling and bicycling.
He was also one of Bowling Green’s most devoted alumni. A 1968 graduate, he served on the university’s Board of Trustees and its Foundation Board of Directors, and the campus’s Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design bears his name. Last month, the university announced that Radbill would be inducted posthumously into its Academy of Distinguished Alumni, one of the school’s highest honors.
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