The driver responsible for blowing a red light and causing a crash that cost two pedestrians their lives was sentenced this week for the tragic Aug. 2022 incident, prosecutors said Friday.
Leandro Diaz-Ramirez will serve a sentence in state prison of 5-15 years for his role in the Manhattan wreck that injured an additional five people.
"Leandro Diaz-Ramirez appropriately received the maximum sentence for Manslaughter in the Second Degree, but nothing can bring back Joel Adames and David Fernandez, whose lives were cut short," District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
The 29-year-old Bronx man, the DA said, had pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter back on Feb. 1.
According to police and investigators, Diaz-Ramirez was traveling 59 miles per hour through Inwood around 4 a.m. when he ran a red light at the intersection of Sherman Avenue and 207th Street.
Surveillance video from near the scene of the crash showed a BMW speeding along Sherman Avenue, and appearing to run a red light before T-boning a Subaru at the intersection. The force sent the Subaru flying onto the sidewalk, where two men — 40-year-old David Fernandez and 31-year-old Joel Adames — were standing, leaving them no where to go.
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Both pedestrians were transported to local hospitals where they were pronounced dead.
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Friends of the two men who died said that Fernandez had just finished giving Adames a late night cut, when everything ended.
"(Adames) just finished seeing his barber and they walked down the street. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess," said Wilmer Gomez, a cousin of Adames, a proud father of a 22-month-old daughter.
A friend of Fernandez's said he was "one of the nicest kids that I ever see. Nice, quiet, hardworking kid." Others remembered him as a talented Salsa dancer, who would teach on the side.
The accident came less than 48 hours after New York City activated its 2,000 speed cameras in 750 school zones across the five boroughs 24/7 for the first time, citing data that proves it significantly cuts traffic fatalities and speeding.
