A New Hyde Park man pleaded guilty Tuesday to all charges related to a drunken-driving accident on Covert Avenue that killed a California man.
Deepak Kumar, 19, will serve four years in prison on 14 charges stemming from the August 2014 crash that left 55-year-old Sir Pierre Antoine dead and his wife and daughter injured seriously injured, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced.
“My office will always remain unyielding in our pursuit of justice for the wife and daughter of this loving husband and father,” Singas said in a statement.
Kumar will serve a total of four years in prison, the DA’s office said. Prosecutors initially sought a sentence of six years in prison on one charge concurrent with a three- to nine-year sentence on another charge.
Kumar was charged with seven felony counts, including aggravated vehicular homicide and second-degree manslaughter, as well as six misdemeanors and a violation.
Prosecutors were ready to take the case to trial, but Kumar entered the plea before it was scheduled to start, DA’s office spokesman Brendan Brosh said.
Michael DerGarabedian, Kumar’s Rockville Centre-based attorney, could not be reached for comment.
Around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 19, 2014, Kumar ran a stop sign on Second Avenue in New Hyde Park in his 2003 Toyota Camry.
He hit Antoine’s 2012 Ford Fusion at a high speed as it was traveling south on Covert Avenue, approaching the Long Island Rail Road crossing.
Antoine was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife Marta Shawl-Antoine, then 38, was knocked unconscious; and daughter Soliana, then 6, suffered a leg fracture. Both were taken to a hospital.
The Antoine family was visiting relatives and was traveling from a hospital to a relative’s home at the time of the crash, the DA’s office said.
Kumar was driving without a license, the DA’s office said, and before the accident he had been drinking and smoking marijuana at the New Hyde Park LIRR station. He had four passengers in the car during the crash.
Police placed him under arrest at the scene and then took him to a hospital.
When Kumar was indicted in September 2014, then-District Attorney and current U.S. Rep Kathleen Rice called his actions “selfish and reckless.”
“This tragedy was completely avoidable and unspeakable,” said Rice, who was elected to Congress (D-Garden City) in November 2014.
The accident led Nassau County’s Department of Public Works to undertake a $250,000 project narrowing Covert Avenue to slow traffic in the area.
