{"id":49232,"date":"2025-11-23T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/49232\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T13:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T13:00:17","slug":"driver-who-killed-mother-and-daughters-sentenced-to-3-to-9-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/49232\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver Who Killed Mother and Daughters Sentenced to 3 to 9 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

A driver who crashed into a woman and her two young daughters while they were crossing a street in Brooklyn<\/a> in March, killing all three, was sentenced to as many as nine years in prison on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The driver, Miriam Yarimi, has admitted striking the woman, Natasha Saada, 34, and her daughters, Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5, after speeding through a red light. She had slammed into another vehicle on the border of the Gravesend and Midwood neighborhoods and careened into a crosswalk where the family was walking.<\/p>\n

Ms. Yarimi, 33, accepted a judge\u2019s offer last month to admit to three counts of second-degree manslaughter in Brooklyn Supreme Court in return for a lighter sentence. She was sentenced on Wednesday by the judge, Justice Danny Chun, to three to nine years behind bars.<\/p>\n

The case against Ms. Yarimi, a wig maker with a robust social media presence, became a flashpoint among transportation activists. Ms. Yarimi, who drove a blue Audi A3 sedan with the license plate WIGM8KER, had a long history of driving infractions, according to New York City records, with more than $12,000 in traffic violation fines tied to her vehicle at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n

The deaths of Ms. Saada and her daughters set off a wave of outrage in the city over unchecked reckless driving and prompted calls from transportation groups for lawmakers to pass penalties on so-called super speeders.<\/p>\n

Ms. Yarimi \u201ccared about only herself when she raced in the streets of Brooklyn and wiped away nearly an entire family,\u201d Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in a statement after the sentencing. \u201cShe should not have been driving a car that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gonzalez had recommended the maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Ms. Yarimi appeared inside the Brooklyn courtroom wearing a gray shirt and leggings, with her hands handcuffed behind her back. During the brief proceedings, she addressed the court, reading from a piece of paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life and I think that\u2019s a punishment in itself,\u201d she said, her eyes full of tears. \u201cI think about the victims every day. There\u2019s not a day that goes by where I don\u2019t think about what I\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the afternoon of March 29, a Saturday, Ms. Yarimi was driving with a suspended license, according to prosecutors. Around 1 p.m., she turned onto Ocean Parkway, where surveillance video shows her using her cellphone and running a red light, before continuing north, they said.<\/p>\n

At the intersection with Quentin Road, Ms. Saada was stepping into the crosswalk with her two daughters and 4-year-old son. Nearby, a Toyota Camry was waiting to turn onto the parkway.<\/p>\n

Ms. Yarimi sped through a red light and into the intersection. She barreled into the back of the Toyota and then shot forward, plowing into the Saada family. Her car flipped over and came to a rest about 130 feet from the carnage.<\/p>\n

Ms. Saada and her daughters were killed, while her son was taken to a hospital where he had a kidney removed and was treated for skull fractures and brain bleeding. The Toyota\u2019s five passengers \u2014 an Uber driver, a mother and her three children \u2014 also suffered minor injuries.<\/p>\n

Ms. Yarimi\u2019s car had been traveling 68 miles per hour in a 25 m.p.h. zone and showed no sign that brakes had been applied, prosecutors said. Ms. Yarimi sustained minor injures from the crash and was later taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.<\/p>\n

The episode caused immediate fury, drawing reactions from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams, who attended the Saadas\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n

According to NYCServ<\/a>, the city\u2019s database for unpaid tickets, Ms. Yarimi\u2019s Audi had $1,345 in unpaid fines at the time of the crash. On another website<\/a> that tracks traffic violations using city data, the car received 107 parking and camera violations between June 2023 and the end of March 2025. Those violations, which included running red lights and speeding through school zones, amounted to more than $12,000 in fines.<\/p>\n

In the months that followed, transportation safety groups and activists decried Ms. Yarimi\u2019s traffic record and urged lawmakers in Albany to pass legislation<\/a> to address the city\u2019s chronic speeders.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gonzalez on Wednesday said that Ms. Yarimi\u2019s sentence showed \u201cthat reckless driving will be vigorously prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

But outside the courthouse, the Saada family\u2019s civil lawyer, Herschel Kulefsky, complained that the family had not been allowed to speak in court. \u201c\u200aThey are quite disappointed, or outraged would probably be a better word,\u201d he said, calling the sentence \u201cthe bare minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this doesn\u2019t send any message at all, other than a lenient message,\u201d Mr. Kulefsky added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A driver who crashed into a woman and her two young daughters while they were crossing a street…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,18041,100,99,27691,27692,17075,24719,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-49232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-nyc","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-chun","tag-danny-k","tag-decisions-and-verdicts","tag-miriam-yarimi","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49232","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=49232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}