Carnage

Unlicensed Driver Pleads Guilty in Brooklyn Hit-and-Run Death

Brian Young was charged for fleeing the scene but not for the act of killing 28-year-old Francis Perez.

By Brad Aaron

3:33 PM EDT on March 31, 2017

Unlicensed Driver Pleads Guilty in Brooklyn Hit-and-Run Death

NYPD has a get-out-of-jail-free card for drivers of large trucks who strike and kill people. Image: News 12

A motorist who killed a man in Brooklyn has pled guilty to leaving the scene and driving without a valid license.

Brian Young struck 28-year-old Francis Perez as Perez crossed Avenue V in Sheepshead Bay on the night of September 23, 2016.

Perez had just walked out of a store with snacks for his 8-year-old son when Young rammed him with a Toyota SUV and kept driving.

“The guy flew in the air, and then the [driver]… stopped at that corner and just drove off,” a witness told the Daily News.

Prosecutors charged Young, then 47, with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and third degree aggravated unlicensed operation. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office declined to charge Young for the act of killing Perez.

Under state law the penalty for hit-and-run can be less severe than the penalty for a drunk driver who injures or kills someone and remains at the scene, a statutory flaw Albany legislators have for years failed to fix.

Leaving the scene of a fatal crash is a class D felony with penalties ranging from probation to seven years in prison. Third degree aggravated unlicensed operation is a low-level misdemeanor. Young pled guilty to both charges Wednesday, according to court records.

Young is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

Brad Aaron

Brad Aaron began writing for Streetsblog in 2007, after years as a reporter, editor, and publisher in the alternative weekly business. Brad adopted New York's dysfunctional traffic justice system as his primary beat for Streetsblog. He lives in Manhattan.

Carnage | District Attorneys | Hit-and-Run | Sheepshead Bay | Unlicensed Driving

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