The hit-and-run minivan driver who allegedly plowed into a married couple from Germany — killing and nearly decapitating the woman and seriously injuring her husband — has been charged in the terrifying Midtown crash, cops said Thursday.
Mohammed Abouzaid, 40, of the Bronx, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and leaving the scene of an accident without reporting, and was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.
“I did not hit anybody,” Abouzaid, who has no prior arrests, allegedly told authorities when he was picked up, according to cops and sources.
Police said Alexandra Sabine Lewalter Maric, 50, of Hamburg, was killed when a 2001 Toyota Sienna driver backed up at a high rate of speed at East 40th Street and Fifth Avenue around 2:40 p.m. Wednesday.
As the driver — who was facing east on East 40th Street, blocking the intersection — backed up, he pinned the husband and wife between his car and a box truck stopped at the light, according to the sources.
The woman was nearly decapitated on impact and pronounced dead, the sources said. --->READ MORE HERE
Mohammed Abouzaid was living in his car and had no driver's license when he mowed down the German couple, who were celebrating their anniversary in the Big Apple, and then sped off
While Germany has been rife with violent migrant crime, 50-year-old Alexandra Sabine Lewalter Maric and her husband, Udo Lewalter, 55, probably thought they would be safe from such things in New York City. Maybe a pickpocket or rude New Yorkers.
Instead, the couple ended up as victims of Mohammed Abouzaid, 40, a driver without any license who recklessly ran over them in his 2001 Toyota Sienna in midtown Manhattan and then took off at high speed.
Lewalter Maric was killed on the spot, nearly decapitated by being run over, while Lewalter was rushed to the hospital to have a severed finger reattached and a skull fracture treated.
The couple had been in New York to celebrate their 23rd anniversary and had just returned from a Virgin cruise up the East Coast. Lewalter Maric had worked at Apple Retail Germany for the past 14 years, according to info from her LinkedIn profile, while Lewalter was a journalist for Computer Bild.
Mohammed Abouzaid had only a learner’s permit when he backed up “at a high rate of speed” into the couple at a crosswalk, crashing into a parked box truck and leaving Lewalter Maric pinned under his minivan, reports the New York Post.
The perpetrator was arrested just an hour after the crash. According to an ongoing investigation, he had been living in his car, had been residing in NYC for some two years—but the New York Post writes it is “unclear” if the man was in the country illegally. That’s when he struck the couple at the crosswalk, pinning the woman under his vehicle, and also hit a box truck stopped at the light, according to sources and a criminal complaint.
Manhattan Criminal Court has arraigned Mohammed on charges of leaving the scene of an accident and failure to yield to a pedestrian. Bail was set at $25,000 or a $75,000 bond. --->READ MORE HERE
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