MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — The motive force in a hit-and-run crash that killed the daddy of rapper Nicki Minaj closing yr was once sentenced Wednesday to a yr in prison, in line with a promise the pass judgement on made when the person pleaded to blame in Might.
Charles Polevich, who pleaded to blame to leaving the scene and tampering with proof within the crash on New York’s Lengthy Island that killed Robert Maraj, was once additionally ordered to pay a $5,000 tremendous and had his driving force’s license suspended for 6 months.
Polevich’s legal professional, Marc Gann, advised his consumer could have had a scientific factor on the time of the crash and that he wasn’t totally acutely aware of what had came about when he fled.
Polevich, 72, stated in courtroom that he’s “been heartsick since understanding the level of the tragedy” and that there was once “no excuse” for his conduct.
Maraj’s widow, Carol Maraj, stated in courtroom that Polevich had left her husband “like a canine in the street” and that sparing him an extended prison sentence was once a “slap within the face for the circle of relatives,” Newsday reported.
Polevich struck Maraj, 64, whilst Maraj was once strolling alongside Roslyn Highway in Mineola in February 2021. Polevich stopped in short to invite Maraj if he was once OK, however didn’t name for lend a hand, prosecutors stated.
As an alternative, Polevich went house, parked the auto — a white, 1992 Volvo station wagon — in his storage and lined it with a tarp, prosecutors stated. Maraj was once taken to a sanatorium and pronounced useless the next day to come.
Prosecutors sought a sentence of 1 to 3 years at the back of bars, however Nassau County Pass judgement on Howard Sturim stated in Might, when Polevich pleaded to blame, that he would get “no multiple yr in prison.”
Brendan Brosh, a spokesperson for the Nassau County district legal professional’s workplace, stated that “given the severity of the defendant’s behavior,” prosecutors felt a stiffer sentence was once warranted.
“We proceed to specific our condolences to the circle of relatives of Robert Maraj,” Brosh stated.
Gann requested for a 90-day prison sentence, arguing that different elements out of doors of Polevich’s keep an eye on had been in part guilty for the crash, together with highway development, side road lighting fixtures that weren’t operating and Maraj’s bodily situation.
Maraj’s widow, Carol Maraj, is suing Polevich over the crash.
Polevich, who have been splitting time between Lengthy Island and Guam, the place he runs a drilling and water purification industry, surrendered to police a couple of days after the crash.
Detectives stated they used items of surveillance video to trace the Volvo concerned within the crash to Polevich’s Mineola house.
Nicki Minaj, the platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated rapper of “Anaconda,” “Tremendous Bass” and different hits, was once born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad and was once raised in Queens.
In a put up on her website online, Minaj, 39, known as her father’s dying “essentially the most devastating lack of my lifestyles.”
