Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Driver Wanted in Fatal Hit-Run Williamsburg Crash Had Drunk Driving Arrest

By  Murray Weiss Trevor Kapp Nikhita Venugopal and Aidan Gardiner | March 4, 2013 8:57am | Updated on March 5, 2013 12:17pm

 Police are looking for Julio Acevedo, 44, in connection with a Williamsburg car crash that left a young couple dead early on March 3, 2013.
Police are looking for Julio Acevedo, 44, in connection with a Williamsburg car crash that left a young couple dead early on March 3, 2013.
View Full Caption
NYPD

WILLIAMSBURG — The hit-and-run driver wanted for the death of a couple killed in a Williamsburg car crash — as well as the death of their premature baby — is a convicted killer who was nabbed for drunken driving during a road rage incident just two weeks ago, sources said.

Julio Acevedo, 44, of Brooklyn, was allegedly behind the wheel of the BMW that fatally plowed into the cab carrying Raizy and Nachman Glauber, both 21, early Sunday as they rushed to a hospital for delivery pains, police sources said.

Acevedo had been arrested for drunken driving and released without bail just two weeks earlier, after he got into a road rage incident with a taxi driver at 3:15 am. Feb. 17 in Brooklyn, according to sources and court documents.

The taxi driver called 911 and Acevedo was arrested with a blood alcohol level of .13, far above the legal level, according to sources and court documents. He told police he had had two beers at a baby shower at Sugar Hill Club, court documents show.

In that incident, Acevedo was driving a 1997 BMW 501 with Pennsylvania plates near 411 Lafayette Ave. when cops stopped him for driving erratically, according to the criminal complaint.

He was arraigned the following day and released without bail, court records show. It was not immediately clear whether his license was revoked following the arrest.

But he was allegedly back behind the wheel Sunday, when he plowed a borrowed BMW into a Toyota Camry livery cab headed northbound on Kent Avenue, the NYPD said. He fled the scene on foot, witnesses said.

"I saw the driver through the window. He was trying to get the key out. I told him, 'Get the hell out of the vehicle. It could explode.' I told him to sit on the curb," said a witness, who identified himself only as Asher, 31, who said he saw Acevedo behind the wheel after Sunday's crash.

Asher said Acevedo was limping and looked shaken up. He briefly sat down on the curb but disappeared when a crowd came, Asher said.

Emergency workers rushed Raizy Glauber, who was reportedly seven months pregnant, to Bellevue Hospital, where her baby boy was delivered prematurely, and then died a day later, police said. She was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, cops said.

Her husband, Nachman Glauber, was declared dead on arrival at Beth Israel Hospital.

There will be no service for the child, whose burial was scheduled for Monday, Abraham said.

The cab driver, Pedro Nunez 32, was released from the hospital Sunday evening, according to a statement from the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.

Nunez was licensed to drive a cab through the Taxi & Limousine Commission, but the vehicle he was driving was not licensed as a livery car, a TLC spokesman said.

"An application to license the vehicle to be used as a livery had been submitted by the driver in late February and was being processed, but it was not yet finalized," a TLC spokesman said.

Police sources said the crash SUV is officially registered to Takia Walker, 29, of the Bronx. Walker told authorities she had leased the vehicle to another man who let Acevedo use it at the time of the incident. Police detained Walker Monday expecting to book her for insurance fraud, but a spokesman for the Bronx's District Attorney said they had deferred prosecution on these charges pending further investigation.

Acevedo, who lives in the Farragut Houses, has a long rap sheet, including a 1987 shooting in Brooklyn for which he was convicted on manslaughter charges and a 1997 robbery in the Bronx, police sources said.

The New York Post reported that the 1987 shooting killed Kelvin Martin, a Brooklyn thug known as "50 Cent" who was the inspiration for rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's name.

The man who let Acevedo use the car told investigators he used it as part of a business in which he offered short-term use of his vehicles for drivers without credit or insurance, sources said.

Acevedo's mother told the Daily News that he would turn himself in on Monday, but that didn't happen.

Police sources said it would be difficult to determine whether Acevedo had been drinking at the time of the crash because so much time has passed since the crash. Some of the possible charges Acevedo could face would be speeding and leaving the scene of an accident. Investigators are trying to trace his final locations before the crash, police sources said.

A $5,000 reward was offered for information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the individuals in the BMW sedan who fled the scene, from Brooklyn Councilmen Stephen Levin, who represents parts of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and Greenpoint, and David G. Greenfield, who represents Midwood, Borough Park, and Bensonhurst.

“All of New York is suffering along with the Glauber and Silberstein families and everyone is impacted by this horrific tragedy," said Greenfield.

"We must do everything we can to help the NYPD track down the individuals who caused this incident and then made the cowardly decision to flee the scene instead of trying to help the victims.”

Family members mourned the death of the young couple, who were members of the Satmar Orthodox Jewish community.

"Whoever did not go through this cannot even contemplate what this is to lose a sister and her husband and more at once so suddenly," Joseph Silberstein, older brother of Raizy Glauber, told DNAinfo.com New York.

But despite his shock at the tragic accident, Silberstein said that some events were out of their control. "This was God's will. We accept it. We have nothing to add," he said.

"This was His will. This is what He wanted. This is what He did. And we accept His decree."