Hit-and-run driver Julio Acevedo convicted of killing Brooklyn family in 2013 crash
BY OREN YANIV
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Thursday, February 19, 2015, 9:41 PM
Updated: Thursday, February 19, 2015, 9:41 PM
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JESSE WARD/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSJulio Acevedo (L) was convicted Thursday for a hit-and-run crash that killed a Brooklyn family. Prosecutors will be seeking a sentence of up to 25 years to life in prison.
An ex-con was found guilty Thursday of killing a Brooklyn family in a horrific hit-and-run crash.
Julio Acevedo, 46, was convicted of reckless manslaughter and other charges for the March 2013 death of Nathan and Raizy Glauber, who was pregnant at the time of the accident, in a Williamsburg wreck.
“A beautiful, innocent family lost their lives,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson. “We were able to get justice for this beautiful family...so we are grateful to this jury.”
Thompson personally attended the evening verdict, making his first appearance at a court proceeding in more than a year in office — a signal of the importance of the trial that was closely-watched in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community where the victims were members.
Henny Glauber, who lost her son, said the family can’t get their loved-ones back, but now obtained “some peace and closure that will help us to try and go on.”
Prosecutors argued Acevedo — who can get up to life in prison because of prior convictions — was driving recklessly, doing about 70 mph, when he slammed into a cab that was taking the couple, both 21, to the hospital.
The wife was five-month-pregnant and her baby boy, named Tanchum, survived for a few hours after his parents had died.
The defense hardly contested the leaving the scene of an accident rap, but claimed Acevedo was going about 35 mph, was not reckless and that the livery cab contributed to the tragedy.
Vehicular Crimes Bureau Chief Gayle Dampf noted it’s difficult to obtain a manslaughter conviction for car crashes and emphasized the significance of the verdict.
Nathan and Raizy Glauber, seen here in their wedding photo, were killed in the hit-and-run crash.
“It’s finally time when speeding will not be tolerated,” she said in the hallway of Brooklyn Supreme Court. “You will not drive in the streets of Brooklyn and disregard the law.”
Acevedo did a decade in prison for the 1987 murder of a legendary drug dealer known as “the Original 50 Cent” and also pleaded to a robbery after that conviction was reduced to manslaughter. He was caught for DWI two weeks before the incident but was released without bail by a judge who didn’t suspend his license as required.
The past felonies raise the stakes for his March 18 sentencing. If he’s deemed a persistent felon, he can get up to 25 years to life in prison. Dampf said they’ll ask for just that.
Acevedo “hopefully will spend the rest of his life in jail where he deserves to be and not on the streets of Brooklyn where he shouldn’t have been out in the first place,” she said.
After more than a day of deliberations, the jury found him guilty of second-degree manslaughter and other counts pertaining to the couple, but only of criminally negligent homicide for the death of the child. They also acquitted him of causing minor injuries to the cabbie.
Acevedo looked up in frustration then shook his head when the foreman announced, “Guilty.”
Defense lawyer Scott Brettschneider said the “disjointed” verdict raises issues for appeal.
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“To me, it’s not supported by the law,” he said. “This case is coming back.”
The victims’ families expressed their gratitude to Thompson and prosecutors but also said whatever happens in court is of little consequence to them.
“It’s impossible to convey,” Raizy Glauber's brother Joseph Silberstein’s brother said of relatives’ feelings.
“It’s loss, loss, loss every day.”
