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Driver Charged With Manslaughter and DWI in Fatal Williamsburg Bridge Crash

By  Trevor Kapp Aidan Gardiner and Alan Neuhauser | May 13, 2013 7:20am | Updated on May 14, 2013 1:16pm

 A woman died after a Nissan Altima sedan crashed on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge.
Woman Killed in Car Crash in Brooklyn
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WILLIAMSBURG — A drunken driver, who zoomed off the Williamsburg Bridge at more than 60 miles per hour before slamming into a divider, spinning out of control and launching a passenger onto the roadway, pleaded with cops after the crash, according to court documents.

"Help, I can't find my friend," Ayisha Dobson, 23, of New Haven, Conn., told responding officers while standing next to the crumpled wreck of her 2003 Nissan Altima about 4 a.m., according to her criminal complaint.

Janice Brown, 21, of Bridgeport, Conn. was found lying motionless nearby in the bridge roadway and pronounced dead, prosecutors said.

Dobson and the three other adult passengers were taken to Bellevue Hospital, FDNY officials said.

The Nissan had been speeding about 66 miles per hour eastbound on the Williamsburg Bridge — nearly twice the speed limit — when Dobson overcompensated a turn near the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and slammed into a metal divider, ejecting Brown from the backseat, prosecutors and police said.

The battered car, which had a part of its frame ripped completely off, jumped a divider, did a 180-degree spin, and finally came to a rest in the westbound lane, facing oncoming traffic, cops said.

Dobson then continued to drive the vehicle, escaping the wrong way down a Manhattan-bound onramp, finally stopping on South Fourth Street near Roebling Street, police said.

By the time emergency responders reached the crash, the driver and her passengers still appeared drunk, prosecutors said.

Dobson told investigators that she had been drinking vodka and had a blood alcohol content of .106 percent, above the legal limit of .08, prosecutors said.

She was charged with manslaughter, driving while intoxicated, criminally negligent homicide and reckless driving, officials said.

Dobson, whose next court date is May 17, was being held at Rikers on $25,000 bail or $50,000 bond as of Wednesday morning, according to the city's Department of Correction website.

She could be sentenced to 15 years behind bars if convicted, a spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said.