Albany, NY : NYPD detective charged in Queens drunken driving crash that killed Guyanese woman on April, Wednesday 26th 2017
Prosecutors charged an off-duty NYPD detective who killed a 22-year-old Guyanese woman in a booze-fueled crash in Queens with criminally negligent homicide during a brief hospital arraignment Wednesday, officials said.According to the New York Daily News, Neville Smith, 32, was also charged with vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving for crashing his 2010 Mercedes-Benz into Vanessa Raghubar’s vehicle on the Van Wyck Expressway near Rockaway Blvd. in South Ozone Park at about 4 a.m. Sunday, authorities said.
Moments after the accident, Smith told responding officers he was returning home “from a dinner function for an old co-worker” when he struck Raghbuar’s car, according to court papers.
Raghubar, a psychology student at York College preparing to graduate in June, suffered a massive head injury and bleeding on the brain, officials said.
She died of her injuries at Jamaica Hospital on Monday, cops said.
According to NY Daily, the soon-to-be college grad was driving home from her sister’s birthday celebration when the fatal collision took place, heartbroken family members said.
Smith, a detective assigned to the 48th Precinct in the Bronx, was heading south on the Van Wyck Expressway at an unsafe speed when he rear-ended Raghubar’s red Honda Accord in the center lane, according to cops.
The collision sent Raghubar’s car careening across the highway onto a grassy shoulder, where it struck a tree and an overhead light pole, critically injuring her and her two passengers.
Her younger sister Maria Raghubar, 21, and her sister’s boyfriend, Justin Harricharran, 20, remained at Jamaica Hospital, where Maria has undergone four surgeries for a shattered pelvis, a shredded bladder and a broken arm.
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NYPD detective charged in Queens drunken driving crash that killed Guyanese woman