A Queens father who gave his 16-year-old son a BMW before the teenager got his driver’s license was sentenced on Monday for his role in a 101 mph crash that killed his son’s 14-year-old passenger.
The father, Sean Smith, 40, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor child endangerment charge.
Smith was sentenced to three years of probation and required to attend a 26-week parenting class, according to the Queens district attorney’s office. He could have spent up to 364 days in jail.
The teen’s mother, Deo Ramnarine, pleaded guilty last month to child endangerment and disorderly conduct charges. She has also enrolled in parenting classes and has not yet faced sentencing.
The Queens DA’s office called the case a “first-of-its-kind prosecution” in New York where parents have been convicted of child endangerment charges for giving their child a car they weren’t legally allowed to drive. In 2012, the Nassau County district attorney’s office charged two parents with unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle for allegedly allowing their teen son to drive with a learner’s permit after he crashed a car, causing the death of four other teens.
“With this conviction, we have shown that the culpability in a fatal crash can go beyond the driver,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said in a statement. “Parents who provide vehicles to their children and let them drive illegally can be held responsible in the case of tragedies such as this one.”
Smith and Ramnarine’s son was driving 101 mph in a 30 mph zone when he lost control of the BMW his parents had given him and collided with a parked UPS truck, according to prosecutors. The DA’s office said Fortune Williams, who was riding in the front passenger seat, was ejected from the car and hit the truck. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The teen driver, then 16, only had a junior driver’s license, prosecutors said. That means he was not allowed to operate a vehicle without adult supervision.
Witnesses from the teen’s school often saw him driving the car and a school administrator had notified his parents, according to the DA’s office. Prosecutors said he also received a ticket about six months earlier for driving without a license.
The now-17-year-old faces a slew of charges, including second-degree manslaughter, reckless driving and endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors are not sharing his name, due to his age.
Ramnarine’s defense attorney, Randy Unger, said he thinks the case sets a bad precedent. His client could never have anticipated that her son would drive the car so fast, he said.
“Those of us who are parents, we have children who sometimes do things that they shouldn’t do,” Unger said, adding: “I don’t know that it’s good policy to hold parents responsible to this extent.”
Unger said he could understand why prosecutors would charge parents who give their children guns, which are “designed to shoot, to kill.” “Cars are designed to drive, not to kill,” he said. “It’s a little different.”
Smith’s attorney, James Polk, said he also disagreed with prosecutors’ legal strategy and thought their arguments would not have prevailed had they faced more of a challenge. But he said his client had accepted a deal because he wanted to move forward and to provide closure for Williams’ family.
‘I wish they would never have given him that car’
Williams’ mother, Keisha Francis, said she forgives the driver’s father but wishes he had to serve time behind bars. She said she doesn’t want to judge other parents’ decisions but thinks Smith and Ramnarine put both her daughter and their son in danger.
“I wish they would never have given him that car,” Francis told Gothamist after the sentencing. “I wish they would never think about giving him that car — because if they didn’t give him that car, my daughter would still be here right now.”
Francis said her daughter was beautiful and intelligent. She loved to sing and dance and always brought tea and Tylenol when her mother was sick.
She never mentioned the boy who was driving the car that night, Francis said. Her other daughter later told her that the two went to school together and liked each other.
Williams’ mother said she wishes she had met the boy and told him not to drive the car. She wishes her daughter hadn’t gotten in the passenger seat. She wishes she hadn’t gone to work that day and had instead stayed home with Williams instead.
Now, Francis talks to her daughter during weekly visits to her grave. She plays their favorite songs or recordings of Bible verses and brings flowers. Sometimes she cries.
“My heart, it hurts every day,” said Francis. “Some days I feel like I can’t even breathe. There’s not one day [that] passes I don’t think about her.”
Williams was weeks away from turning 15 when she died. She was excitedly planning her birthday in the days before her death, Francis said. She also dreamed of going to medical school and becoming a dermatologist.
“I used to say, ‘Fortune, you have a lot of time,’” her mother said. “My poor baby didn’t have a lot of time.”