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| This undated photo, provided by the New York City Police Department on Monday March 4, 2013, shows Julio Acevedo, 44, who police are looking for in connection with the death of an expectant couple that was killed in a car accident in Brooklyn early Sunday morning and their premature baby, who was delivered alive but did not survive. Police are searching for the driver of a BMW who fled on foot after slamming into the livery cab transporting Nachman Glauber and his pregnant wife Raizy, both 21 years old. |
NEW YORK (AP) -- A man suspected of fleeing the scene of a grisly crash in New York City that killed a pregnant woman and her husband was arrested at a convenience store in northeastern Pennsylvania on
Wednesday after a friend arranged his surrender with authorities.
Julio
Acevedo, 44, walked to officers waiting in cars in the parking lot in
Bethlehem, Pa., and was arrested on charges of leaving the scene of an
accident, said Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the New York Police
Department. Acevedo, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, said nothing to
officers who took him into custody, Browne said.
The
surrender, which occurred shortly after 5 p.m., was brokered by a
friend who had been in touch with police earlier in the day. The friend
met officers at New York's Grand Central Station, then led them to
Acevedo in Bethlehem, about 80 miles away, police said.
Acevedo
was being held by Pennsylvania State Police and was awaiting
extradition to New York. Browne said it wasn't clear when he would be
returned.
It wasn't clear if Acevedo had an
attorney. The friend had told police that Acevedo would surrender after
consulting a lawyer, but none was with him when he turned himself in,
Browne said.
Acevedo allegedly was speeding
down a Brooklyn street in a BMW at 60 mph early Sunday when he collided
with a car carrying Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21. They died
Sunday, and their premature son died Monday.
Acevedo
told the Daily News that he was fleeing a gunman who was trying to
shoot at him when his borrowed speeding BMW slammed into a hired car
carrying the couple. He told the newspaper he fled because he was
worried he'd be killed, and said he didn't know the couple had died
until he saw it in the news. But police said there were no reports of
shots fired in the area at the time of the wreck.
The
tragedy unfolded shortly after midnight Sunday, when Raizy Glauber, who
was seven months pregnant, decided to go to the hospital because she
wasn't feeling well, her family said. They called a livery cab, a hired
car that is arranged via telephone, not hailed off the street like a
yellow cab.
The crash with the BMW reduced the
cab to a crumpled heap, and Raizy Glauber was thrown from the wreck.
The engine ended up in the back seat. The driver of the livery cab was
knocked unconscious but was not seriously hurt.
The
couple belonged to a close-knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in
Brooklyn, which is home to the largest community of ultra-Orthodox Jews
outside Israel, more than 250,000. They were members of the Satmar
Hasidic sect. Raizy Glauber grew up in a prominent rabbinical family.
Her husband was studying at a rabbinical college; his family founded a
line of clothing for Orthodox Jews.
The child
was delivered by cesarean section after his parents were killed. The
baby weighed only about 4 pounds when he was delivered, neighbors and
friends said. He died of extreme prematurity, the city medical
examiner's office said.
The baby was buried
Monday near his parents' graves, according to a spokesman for the
Hasidic Jewish community. About a thousand community members turned out
for the young couple's funeral a day earlier.
Acevedo
was arrested last month on a charge of driving while under the
influence, and the case is pending. He was stopped by police after they
said he was driving erratically around 3 a.m. Feb. 17. He had a
blood-alcohol level of .13, over the limit of .08, police said.
He
served about a decade in prison in the 1990s for manslaughter after he
was convicted of shooting Kelvin Martin, a Brooklyn criminal whose
moniker "50 Cent" was the inspiration for rapper Curtis Jackson's
current stage name.
How Acevedo came to
possess the BMW is under investigation. The registered owner was
arrested Sunday on insurance fraud charges related to the vehicle, but
the case was deferred.
