By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MUNICIPAL DISTRICT — Former police commissioner Howard Safir will not face charges stemming from an alleged pedestrian hit-and-run last month on the Upper East Side, the Manhattan District Attorney said Friday.
Safir was accused of backing into a seven-months pregnant woman in his Cadillac SUV and then driving away from the scene at Third Avenue, near 81st Street on Jan. 9.
Police at the 19th precinct did not charge Safir and said they did not believe there was criminal wrongdoing.
Shortly after, newly-anointed Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. confirmed his office would investigate the matter on its own.
"We found no evidence of a crime, so the matter is closed," a spokesperson for Vance said Friday morning.
Safir's attorney, Martin Pollner, said the woman was not hurt and that they're pleased with the DA's decision.
"He was backing onto a space at one mile an hour. This woman, who was in the middle of the block, brushed behind his vehicle," Pollner said. "She was jaywalking in the middle of the street, walking on the blind side of his vehicle."
Pollner would not say whether the city's former top police officer had been in touch with the Bronx mother, Joanne Valarezo, who had claimed Safir definitely knew that he'd hit her and then drove away.
Safir ran the NYPD from 1996 to 2000. He was previously head of the FDNY, appointed by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
