18-year-old gets up to 4 years in prison for 2023 Queens crash that killed teenage girl

CBS News

a day ago

An 18-year-old was sentenced to prison Friday for a 2023 car crash in Queens that killed a teenage girl.
The teenager's name is not being released because he was just 16 years old when he was arrested.
Prosecutors say the unlicensed teen driver was traveling over 100 mph when he lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a parked UPS truck on North Conduit Avenue near 160th Street in Jamaica on May 17, 2023. Fourteen-year-old Fortune Williams, who was a passenger in the car, was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene.
This was a landmark case in New York, as the teen's parents were also held responsible for Fortune's death.
The 18-year-old will be getting up to four years in prison.
Inside court, the judge continued to stress just how young the defendant was at the time of the crash, saying his brain wasn't fully developed.
Because the driver was just 16 at the time of the crash, the judge granted him youthful offender status, so he won't have a criminal conviction on his record.
Officials say months prior to the crash, the teen driver was ticketed for driving without a license.
In an interview last year, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said that the teen's school had notified his mother weeks before the crash that the 16-year-old had been seen driving a car, which parents bought him, without adult supervision.
"They chose to give their children a BMW. They chose not to have restrictions," Katz said in 2024.
The teen's parents, 40-year-old Sean Smith and 43-year-old Deo Ramnarine, were sentenced last year for their part. Smith got probation, and both were mandated to take parenting classes.
Friday was a monumental and emotional day for Fortune's family.
"It's very hard," Fortune's mom, Keisha Francis, said. "I just live as days go by."
While Fortune's mother still partially blames the shortcomings of the driver's parents, inside court she accepted the driver's apology.
"When I keep him in my heart, I get sick," she said.
She added, "He gets 10 years, five years, six years, it's not going to help my heart, so it didn't matter what he get ... He has to live with the fact of the action that he took that took Fortune's life."