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Brooklyn Motorist Arrested After Wild Crash in Harlem

By Aidan Gardiner | February 7, 2013 7:55am

HARLEM — A Brooklyn man who was driving a van that plowed into a Ford Focus and killed one of its passengers in Harlem Wednesday has been arrested for driving without a license, NYPD officials said.

Wislairs Mentor, 36, was behind the wheel of the northbound 2009 Ford E250 when it slammed into a red 2003 Ford Focus — with four occupants, including two children — as the car attempted to make a turn at Broadway and West 135th Street, police said.

Both vehicles "careened" onto the northeast corner of the intersection, where they struck a 44-year-old woman, police said.

Litseth Ventura, 46, who was sitting in the front seat of the Focus, was rushed to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead, cops said.

The other occupants in the car, the driver and two children in the backseat, were taken to Harlem Hospital with injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, police said. The unidentified pedestrian was taken to the same hospital and expected to survive.

Mentor, who was also taken to Harlem Hospital with minor injuries, was arrested and charged with aggravated unlicensed operator and operating a motor vehicle without a license.