Trial Date for Driver in Glauber Tragedy to Be Set Friday

BROOKLYN

A trial date for the driver in the crash last year in which Reb Nachman and Raizy Glauber, z”l, lost their lives along with their baby born prematurely, will be announced on Friday in Brooklyn state court.

Julio Acevedo has pleaded not guilty to criminally negligent homicide. A lesser charge accuses him of leaving the scene of the accident. He could face up to life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Acevedo was traveling nearly 70 miles per hour — more than twice the speed limit — on March 3 when
he crashed into a car carrying the Glaubers.

Passersby who stopped to help said that Acevedo assured them he wasn’t hurt. He then slipped away on foot, fully aware of the carnage. He turned himself in to police at a Pennsylvania parking lot days later

The tragedy shook Brooklyn’s Jewish community, with thousands attending the double levayah in Williamsburg and in Monsey. Many activists and elected officials called for giving Acevedo a long prison sentence for the recklessness with which he drove and his cavalier attitude in walking away from the scene.

The case will be prosecuted by Gayle Dampf, an assistant district attorney for the vehicular crimes bureau. However, prosecutors may struggle to convict Acevedo, who is currently being held without bail. He had a long rap sheet stretching back to a multi-year prison sentence in the 1990s, including an arrest for drunken driving just a week before the Glauber tragedy.

But vehicular-crime cases in New York are usually based on the driver’s committing at least two traffic infractions. Speeding on its own is frequently insufficient to establish criminality, and while Acevedo is suspected of having been drunk, that will be nearly impossible to prove since he was not caught until three days later.

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