A hit-and-run driver who killed a New York University student pleaded guilty Friday, but will not serve jail time. Greg Cergol reports.
The parents of an 18-year-old boy struck and killed last summer in the Hamptons were stunned to hear a judge sentence the driver responsible to serve only six months of community service.
Daniel Campbell left court on Friday without comment after the 20-year-old pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a crash last August.
Campbell's vehicle had struck and killed Devesh Samtani, as the 18-year-old was walking from a house party while on vacation in Amagansett.
In court on Friday, Campbell admitted he never stopped to try and help Samtani. Campbell's lawyer said the 20-year-old accepted responsibility for what happened, but he did so with a promise from Judge Richard Ambro to sentence the man to six months of community service.
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"Please explain why I can't get my son back and the boy who killed my son can go scot-free," his mother, Mala Samtani, asked outside the Suffolk County court.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Suffolk County district attorney said prosecutors had asked for a prison term of one to three years. But the court has the independent authority to sentence as it sees appropriate.
"If he would have been given some jail time, at least it would have given him a chance to reconcile that what he did was wrong," Kishore Samtani, the boy's father, said.
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Samtani's family, who traveled from Hong Kong for Friday's hearing, said the judge appears to be ignoring their pain -- a pain that causes his mom to sleep with a photo of her son. His dad has also tattooed his son's name and face onto his arms.
At just 18 years old, Samtani had already written a children's book about COVID-19 with plans to donate the proceeds, and was killed jus two weeks before enrolling at New York University.
The judge provided no reason in court why his sentence would include no jail time, and no further comment was offered by a court spokesperson.
