The driver who has been charged with manslaughter for the hit-and-run crash that killed a young Williamsburg couple and their unborn child refuses to accept the full blame for the incident. "Sure I played a part. I couldn't stop. Accidents happen. I'm sad. It was a tragedy," Acevedo told ABC in a jailhouse interview. "Let's ask the cab driver why did he run the stop sign."
Investigators determined that Acevedo had been traveling 69.1 miles per hour, more than twice the legal speed limit, when he collided with a cab carrying Nathan and Raizy Glauber, who were on the way to the hospital on the evening of March 3rd; the baby was born prematurely at the scene, but died soon after. Acevedo is being held without bail on three counts of vehicular manslaughter, and he sounds frustrated by the way he's been portrayed: "I'm made out to be the monster in all this," he said. "I can't bring 'em back, it was an accident. I apologize deeply."
Acevedo, who did time for the murder of Kelvin Martin (the original 50 Cent) and had been charged with DWI just two weeks before the fatal crash, maintains that he was driving recklessly because someone had shot at him in retaliation for the Martin job. But he also says he wasn't speeding or drunk at the time of the incident, and says the cab driver bears much of the responsibility: "Of course. He was more in the rush than I was. He was rushing the woman to the hospital."
Acevedo added that if he could do things over, he wouldn't have fled the scene. He ended up turning himself into police four days later in Pennsylvania, and he says he was scared because of his prior experience: "I was afraid for what I went through in 1987. No one believes me." Acevedo claim that local gangsters who wanted Acevedo's "best friend" Martin dead forced him to do the hit: "My family was going to be killed; I was going to be killed," Acevedo said, "I was kidnapped, beaten, tortured."
Amazingly, evidence was revealed to the Brooklyn DA's office after Acevedo was sentenced to 20 years to life for murder that he was telling the truth. "They sat on the information until Acevedo got wind of it," said Scott Brettschneider, Acevedo's attorney. Acevedo was freed after 10 years in jail: "I don't trust the system. I don't believe in it. I've been through it."