If killing a mom and two young children isn’t a horrific enough crime to warrant serious punishment in New York City, what is?
A Brooklyn judge just handed chronic reckless driver Miriam Yarimi a sweetheart deal of just three to nine years in prison after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter for mowing down Brooklyn mom Natasha Saada and her three kids (Diana, 7, Deborah, 5, and Philip, 4) in March.
Natasha, Diana and Deborah were killed, while little Philip was critically injured, prompting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez to call it “one of the worst collisions” he’s seen in his 25-year career.
His office sought a sentence of up to 15 years, which Judge Danny Chen arrogantly ignored — for zero reason: Yarimi has a history of shamelessly flouting the laws of the road, earning more than 93 traffic violations, 20 of which are speeding tickets.
That is: She’d long been a deadly menace, routinely contemptuous of the law and public safety; such a reckless disregard for the lives of others amounts to a de-facto intent to cause harm.
Indeed, she was driving on a suspended license and going nearly three times the speed limit when she ran a red light on Ocean Parkway and careened into a Toyota Camry, sending her Audi A4 flying into Natasha and her children.
After ramming through the young family, Yarimi told first responders that she was “possessed” by the devil, ranting: “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. Prove it. Show me proof.”
This is the woman Chen believes should be out among the unsuspecting general public within as few as three years — though she seems certain to get back behind the wheel and risk more innocent lives.
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No: She should pay the price for her selfish, lawless actions that cut so short the lives of a young mother and two of her children .
The surviving members of the Saada family deserved justice for their unthinkable loss; instead, Judge Chen rubbed their faces in the dirt.
It’s flat-out obscene that our political machines install judges like Danny Chen who go beyond New York’s too-permissive statues to further encourage lawless contempt for public safety.
With soft-on-crime Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani set to roll back law enforcement even more, we have to wonder how bad things will have to get before the voters finally revolt.