{"id":367339,"date":"2026-10-07T23:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T23:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367339\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T23:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T23:40:16","slug":"arrest-made-in-death-of-nyc-philanthropist-killed-while-riding-bike-on-upper-west-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367339\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest made in death of NYC philanthropist killed while riding bike on Upper West Side"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man behind the wheel of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2025\/12\/12\/geoffrey-radbill-philanthropist-dies-car-driver-hits-bike-manhattan-street\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">car that struck and killed a prominent Manhattan philanthropist<\/a> while he was riding his bike last year has been arrested, police said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Lesnier Ortega Varona, 38, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian nearly 10 months after the death of philanthropist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bgsu.edu\/business\/departments-and-programs\/finance\/financeadvisorycouncil\/geoffrey-radbill.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Geoffrey Radbill, 78,<\/a> whose generosity included major donations to his alma mater, Bowling Green State University in Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>Radbill was riding his bicycle on Dec. 7 along Riverside Drive when he was struck from behind by a silver 2021 Toyota sedan, cops said.<\/p>\n<p>Radbill suffered severe injuries and was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he died. Varona stayed at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>The NYPD Highway District\u2019s Collision Investigation Squad followed up on the case and brought the charges against Varona on Wednesday, police said.<\/p>\n<p>Radbill, a longtime Upper West Side resident, was a successful financier and generous supporter of his alma mater, where in 2023, a renovated portion of the Mathematical Sciences Building was named in his honor.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"The lights of the Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design were dimmed Sunday night in tribute to the bike-riding philanthropist. (Rodney K. Rogers via @Pres_Rogers\/X.com)\" width=\"2048\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/G72vG6xWkAAeSEG.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"8631683\" \/>The lights of the Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design were dimmed Sunday night in tribute to the bike-riding philanthropist. (Rodney K. Rogers via @Pres_Rogers\/X.com)<\/p>\n<p>A Bowling Green bio said Radbill retired from AXA-Equitable in 2004 after 36 years with the firm. His philanthropic work included the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man behind the wheel of a car that struck and killed a prominent Manhattan philanthropist while he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,56,63,261,65,64,265],"class_list":["post-367339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}