Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Thursday that a grand jury has indicted a 26-year-old man in a crash that killed a passenger riding in the back of an Uber. What prosecutors say the driver did in the minutes before the collision drew a blunt warning from the DA himself.
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The driver, Robert Koch, of the Bronx, had allegedly entered the West Side Highway going the wrong way and was driving north in the southbound lanes while drunk, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. After narrowly avoiding several oncoming cars, he collided head-on with the Uber near West 72nd Street, prosecutors said.The passenger, 65-year-old Ada Rivero, was pronounced dead that same morning at 6:36 a.m. from multiple blunt force injuries she suffered in the collision. The crash happened around 3:30 a.m. on May 3, after Koch left an event in Times Square, walked to his car on West 51st Street and drove to West 57th Street, where he entered the southbound lanes headed the wrong direction, according to the DA’s office.
Both the Uber driver and Rivero were trapped in their vehicle until the FDNY extracted them, prosecutors said. An eyewitness pulled Koch from the driver’s seat of his own car. All three people were injured and taken to local hospitals.
Koch was indicted on aggravated vehicular homicide, second-degree manslaughter and two counts of second-degree vehicular manslaughter, along with assault, aggravated driving while intoxicated and driving while intoxicated.
Bragg said Koch allegedly drove the wrong way while drunk and cut short Rivero’s life, and he warned that anyone who considers driving under the influence “will be prosecuted.” He added that his thoughts are with Rivero’s loved ones as they mourn her.
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