- The parents of a boy who crashed his car, killing his girlfriend, have been sentenced to probation and ordered to take parenting classes.
- The teenager from New York faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree manslaughter over 100 mph crash into UPS truck.
- Fortune Williams, 14, was thrown from the 2005 BMW 325i and died at the scene.
Unless you’re driving a Mercedes with Level 3 autonomy and have its Drive Pilot tech engaged, you are entirely responsible for what happens when you’re behind the wheel. If you run someone down, it’s your fault. If you T-bone someone and they die, it’s your fault.
But a couple in New York have just been charged in relation to a fatal accident that involved their son, and they weren’t even in the car.
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Fortune Williams, aged just 14 at the time of the accident, was killed in May 2023 when the unnamed youth, then 16, smashed his 2005 BMW 325i into the back of a parked UPS truck in Queens. The E46 3-Series was traveling at 101 mph (163 km/h) in a 30 mph (48 km/h) zone, the New York Times reports.
Fortune was a passenger in the BMW, but was thrown out of the wreck and died at the scene, while the driver suffered only minor injuries. He has since been hit with more than a dozen charges, including second-degree manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child, and could be locked up for 15 years if convicted.
But the driver wasn’t the only one in trouble with the law over the tragic accident. His parents, Sean Smith and Deo Ramnarine, were charged with endangering the welfare of their own son, and have since pled guilty. They were sentenced this week to three years of probation and ordered to attend parenting classes.
The charges were determined after the court learned that the parents had allowed the boy to drive the BMW alone, even though his junior driver’s license didn’t allow him to drive the car without supervision. His school had raised its concerns with the parents after seeing him drive to school, and the youth had even received ticket from a police stop for driving without a license and using a phone.
“With this conviction, we have shown that the culpability in a fatal crash can go beyond the driver,” said Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, as reported by the NYT. “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.”
The parents shouldn’t have knowingly let their son drive the car, but do you think they should have been sentenced? Leave a comment and let us know.
