Heartbroken members of the family of the 2 14-year-old boys who have been killed by a drunk driver in a wrong-way drug-induced crash in Lengthy Island blasted the person accountable for reducing their lives brief as “evil” moments earlier than he was hauled away to jail.
Lots of of tearful buddies and family members packed a Nassau County courtroom – and two overflow rooms – Friday as Amandeep Singh was sentenced to as much as 25 years for the deaths of Roslyn Center College eighth-graders Ethan Falkowitz and Drew Hassenbein on Might 3, 2023.
“As an alternative of selecting up my son at college, I needed to establish him on the morgue. It’s inhuman torture,” Drew’s father, Mitch Hassenbein, stated in courtroom – calling Singh “the definition of evil.”
“I’m a damaged, bitter, offended man, stuffed with a darkish aspect, and making an attempt to navigate a international world. You ripped the center out of our household. He gave my son a demise sentence, and all of us a life sentence.”
Hassenbein was certainly one of 9 individuals who delivered sufferer affect statements – a lot of whom slammed the courtroom for a punishment they felt wasn’t lengthy sufficient.
Singh was driving at 95 miles per hour in opposition to site visitors on North Broadway – which has a pace restrict of 40 miles per hour – when he slammed his 2019 Dodge Ram into the Alfa Romeo Drew and Ethan have been driving in with a 16- and 17-year-old boy.
The 36-year-old was drunk and excessive on cocaine with a blood alcohol content material of .15 – practically twice the authorized restrict – with cops recovering a bottle of tequila from his truck.
The married father of two later fled the scene and hid behind a dumpster at a close-by purchasing heart, the place he was busted by cops. Prosecutors stated Singh was so drunk he thought he was in New Jersey.
“Amandeep Singh will not be a person, he’s a coward and he’s a assassin. He deserved a a lot worse sentence than he obtained,” stated Zachary Sheena, one of many teenagers who survived the wreck that totaled the SUV.
“He by no means apologized as soon as and took each likelihood attainable to attempt to get out of bother. He’s a egocentric coward. Drew and Ethan won’t ever be forgotten. They have been the definition of good.”
Sheena, who now suffers from put up traumatic stress dysfunction, was behind the wheel of the smashed automotive. Drew and Ethan – seated on the correct aspect in the back and front – took the brunt of the crash and have been killed immediately.
The opposite two have been injured within the crash.
Each of the slain boy’s moms spoke by means of their tears as they expressed their “hate” for Singh.
“You stole my coronary heart and soul,” Ethan’s mother, Lynn Falkowitz stated, as Drew’s mom, Jaime Hassenbein, blamed the drunk driver for destroying her household and her son’s “shiny future.”
“You took all of it away, I hate you,” she stated.
Singh pleaded responsible to a 15-count indictment in January that included manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, vehicular murder, assault, driving whereas intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident, amongst different counts.
Singh known as the horrific wreck the epitome of stupidity and selfishness.
“This was all my fault,” he informed the courtroom, CBS Information reported.
“Shedding a baby is the best grief. I’ve dedicated the good sin. If anybody ought to have died, it ought to have been me.”
Supply hyperlink
