By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — The anguished family and friends of a 20-year-old Pace student killed by a reckless cabdriver four years ago showed no mercy for the driver at his sentencing Friday, but a plea deal saved the man from doing jail time for the woman's death.
Driver Hassan Afzal, 25, said nothing when offered the chance to speak at his sentencing Friday, an opportunity defendants often take to apologize to victims or express regret.
"You killed someone, Hassan. You're a monster," shouted Amy Vallarelli, 23, who was badly injured but survived the crash that killed her best friend, Danielle Ricco, on June 11, 2006.
"You don't even care that you killed somebody. What kind of human being are you?"
Ricco was thrown from Afzal's cab and then fatally struck by another taxi driving by on the West Side Highway near Houston Street. Her three friends survived the accident but sustained serious injuries.
Afzal's plea deal consists of five years probation, though he faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison for criminally negligent homicide. He admitted to lying on a driver's exam about a pre-existing epileptic condition and blamed a seizure for the crash.
But Vallarelli said she remembers the details of the fatal night clearly, explaining that Afzal was disrespectful and menacing from the moment they entered his cab on their was back to their college dorm.
He taunted the four young women in the car by speeding and blasting hip-hop music after 3 a.m., Vallarelli said.
"The second we got into that cab, you were playing that rap song by TI, and when Danielle said to lower that you made it louder and you laughed," Vallarelli said in a statement in court.
Ricco's tearful parents said they felt no sympathy for the man responsible for ending their daughter's life just weeks before she was to start an internship at Disney World that she'd been looking forward to.
"I'm sorry, I'm a grieving parent. I have no forgiveness, I don't," said a distraught Diane Ricco, mother of Danielle.
"You ruined enough lives by your carelessness — that's what it was," said Danielle's father, Richard. "And I hope you live knowing this every day of the rest of your life."
Afzal's lawyer, Bryan Konoski, said his client was merely a bad communicator and that he was sorry for his irresponsibility.
"He feels extremely bad for everything that's happened. He's been extremely remorseful," the attorney said.
Ricco's family and the survivors of the crash shook their heads in disgust at the lawyers claim.
They said they have not received a single apology in four years, but had been hoping for one Friday.
"I wish you could just look at us and say you're sorry," Vallarelli said. "You owe us that at least."
