‘Reckless’ Hudson Valley Woman Kills Grandfather With Car, 2 Hurt

A Hudson Valley woman who has a history of "reckless driving" confessed she fatally hit a New York grandfather and injured two others.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. announced 38-year-old Jessenia Fajardo of Walden pleaded guilty to manslaughter and two counts of assault. Fajardo confessed she hit people with her SUV on West End Avenue in July of 2019, killing 62-year-old Alfred Pocari and seriously injuring the second victim. She also admitted to injuring a third victim in a separate, unrelated vehicular incident.

In late-July 2019, a 2011 Acura RDX driven by Fajardo ran through a red light and drove into two people who stepped into the crosswalk at W. 98 Street and West End Avenue on the Upper West Side in New York City.

A man and woman stepped into the crosswalk and then were hit by the Acura, sending both 25-feet from where they were hit. One of the victims, Pocari, 64, died from his injuries a few days later. Pocari was walking to work as a doorman when he was hit. He was a grandfather to triplets.

“The death of Alfred Pocari, a beloved grandfather of three, was not only tragic — it was a foreseeable and devastating consequence of the defendant’s habitually reckless driving,” Vance said. “Our laws are fundamentally broken when it takes the death of a fellow New Yorker to get a driver with a history of reckless conduct off the road, as is demonstrated in this case."

In May of 2019, Fajardo was accused of driving through a stop sign near Desbrosses and Washington streets and driving over a person's foot while the person was in the crosswalk.

She is expected to be sentenced on March 2, 2021.