Dump Truck Driver Pleads to Misdemeanor for Killing Woman Outside Javits Center

A truck driver who killed a woman in a Midtown crosswalk last year has pled guilty to violating the victim’s right of way.

Carlos Torres, of Brooklyn, hit Elise Lachowyn with a dump truck as he made a right turn from W. 37th Street onto 11th Avenue, outside the Javits Center, at around 10:00 in the morning on February 12, 2016.

Lachowyn, a 48-year-old Colorado businesswoman in town for a toy convention at Javits, died at the scene.

Torres was operating a truck with New Jersey plates, and was traveling in the direction of the New Jersey-bound Lincoln Tunnel entrance just north of the crash site.

Torres, then 51, was charged with a misdemeanor under the city’s Right of Way Law, as well as failure to exercise due care, which is a traffic infraction. On Wednesday he pled guilty to both charges, according to court records.

A photo published by the Daily News indicates the truck Torres was driving did not have front-mounted convex “crossover” mirrors. Even when they’re owned by companies that do business in NYC, trucks registered outside New York are exempt from state law that requires the mirrors, which give drivers a better view of the road directly in front of them. Closing the loophole in the law has not been a priority for legislators in Albany or Washington.

The Department of Motor Vehicles revoked Torres’s license after the crash. In New York State, a person whose license is revoked may apply to have his driving privileges restored after a prescribed period of time.

In addition to the license penalty, Torres was sentenced to a fine of $750 plus $88 in fees.