Career Criminal Nabbed in Hit-and-Run Crash That Killed Orthodox Jewish Family
Julio Acevedo Image by nypd
New York police on Wednesday said they apprehended a suspected hit-and-run driver following a weekend accident that killed a young Orthodox Jewish couple whose baby was later delivered by C-section but then died.
“The suspect has been apprehended,” said New York Police Detective Kelly Ort.
“It’s a sweet, bitter pill to swallow,” said community leader Isaac Abraham, a family friend of the couple that was killed. “Sweet because it’s at least the best news we have heard in the last 72 hours, but it’s bitter because it doesn’t bring any of three people that were murdered back.
“I hope they throw the book at him,” he added.
Julio Acevedo, 44, of Brooklyn was arrested as he walked through the parking lot of a convenience story in Bethlehem, Pa., just after 5 p.m., the Daily News reported.
“Plans are underway now to extradite him to New York in connection with the car crash that took the lives of the young couple and their child,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told the News.
Acevedo had appaerently told police where to find him and turned himself in.
“We had learned earlier today of his whereabouts in Pennsylvania,” Browne said. “We were assisted by his friend.”
Acevedo was placed in handcuffs and charged with leaving the scene of a vehicular accident, Browne said, adding he did not have an attorney with him.
Nachman and Raizy Glauber
Weightier charges will be up to the Brooklyn District Attorney, he said.
Acevedo was taken to Pennsylvania state barracks in Bethlehem, where he is being held pending extradition to New York, Browne said.
Browne said he did not know what connection, if any, Acevedo had with Bethlehem, a small city in eastern Pennsylvania that lies about 90 miles west of New York City.
The shameless hit-and-run driver who killed an Orthodox couple as they rode to the hospital to deliver their first driver earlier told a reporter that he was sorry that they died along with their newborn boy.
Acevedo said he raced away from the horror Sunday morning crash in Brooklyn because he didn’t know Nachman and Raizy Glauber had died.
“My heart goes out to those people,” Acevedo told WABC News from an undisclosed location. “I left the scene, and when I did leave the scene I didn’t know anyone died.”
Acevedo, an ex-con with a long rap sheet including a manslaughter conviction, claimed he was fleeing after being shot at nearby when he careened into a livery cab carrying the Glaubers, who were expecting their first baby, just after midnight Sunday.
The Glaubers, both 21, died in the crash. They were members of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg.
Family friends told local media that Raizy Glauber was about six months pregnant and had wanted to go to the hospital because she was not feeling well.
The baby was delivered by cesarean section at Bellevue Hospital, where his mother had been pronounced dead on arrival, police said.
Paramedics were able to deliver their premature son by emergency C-section. But he died a day later.
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