A 30-year-old woman was arrested more than a year after she allegedly struck a panhandler with her car in Brooklyn on New Year’s Eve and then dragged his body for a half mile in a fatal hit-and-run, cops said Wednesday.
Ajahnni Triana was charged with criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and reckless driving for the crash that claimed the life of Michael Foster on Dec. 31, 2024. She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment and was released without bail, court records show.
Foster, 64, was panhandling and walking in the roadway on Caton Ave. near Flatbush Ave. in Flatbush when the driver of a white Audi plowed into him at a high speed around 7:30 p.m., according to law enforcement.
The Audi driver dragged the victim for a half mile before he became dislodged near Linden Blvd. and Nostrand Ave., police said.
Foster died at the scene. The driver never stopped.
Triana has four prior arrests on record, with charges including criminal mischief, petty larceny, criminal contempt and assault, cops said.
She lives in East New York more than four miles from where the collision occurred.
The superintendent of the building where Foster lived said he saw him the night the incident took place.
“I saw him at the stop light,” Noel Clauson said. “He would go out to the cars and beg for change. That night a car must have come along and hit him.”
Foster’s roommate John Isdore, 54, said Foster “was in a drug rehab program” and was a loner.
“He lived here with the two of us and we shared the apartment,” Isdore said. “He kept to himself and he didn’t have any family.”