Charles Polevich in Nassau County Court for sentencing Wednesday in Mineola, NY. Polevich, the driver in a collision that killed rapper Nicki Minaj’s father last year was sentenced to a year in prison.
Howard Schnapp / AP
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Howard Schnapp / AP
Charles Polevich in Nassau County Court for sentencing Wednesday in Mineola, NY. Polevich, the driver in a collision that killed rapper Nicki Minaj’s father last year was sentenced to a year in prison.
Howard Schnapp / AP
MINEOLA, NY – The driver in a collision that killed rapper Nicki Minaj’s father last year was sentenced to a year in prison on Wednesday, living up to a judge’s promise when the man pleaded guilty in May. .
Charles Polevich, who pleaded guilty to leaving the scene and tampering with evidence in the Long Island crash in New York that killed Robert Maraj, was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and have his driver’s license suspended for six months. .
Polevich’s attorney, Marc Gann, argued that his client may have been in ill health at the time of the accident and that he was not fully aware of what had happened while fleeing.
Polevich, 72, told the court he was “heartbroken since realizing the extent of the tragedy” and had “no excuse” for his behaviour.
Maraj’s widow, Carol Maraj, told the court that Polevich had left her husband “like a dog in the street” and that pardoning him a longer prison sentence was a “slap in the family’s face,” Newsday reported. .
Polevich attacked Maraj, 64, while Maraj was walking along Roslyn Road in Mineola in February 2021. Polevich paused for a moment to ask Maraj if he was okay, but did not call for help, prosecutors said. said.
Instead, Polevich went home, parked the car – a white 1992 Volvo station wagon – in his garage and covered it with a tarp, prosecutors said. Maraj was taken to hospital and pronounced dead the next day.
Prosecutors sought a sentence of one to three years behind bars, but Judge Howard Sturim of Nassau County said in May, when Polevich pleaded guilty, that he would receive “no more than a year in prison. “
Brendan Brosh, a spokesman for the Nassau County District Attorney’s office, said that “given the gravity of the defendant’s conduct,” prosecutors felt a more severe sentence had been delivered.
“We continue to offer our condolences to Robert Maraj’s family,” Brosh said.
Gann asked for a 90-day prison sentence, alleging that other factors beyond Polevich’s control were the cause of the accident, including road construction, failing street lights and Maraj’s physical condition .
Maraj’s widow, Carol Maraj, is suing Polevich over the accident.
Polevich, who split his time between Long Island and Guam, where he ran a drilling and water purification business, surrendered to police a few days after the accident.
Detectives said they used surveillance video to track the Volvo involved in the crash to Polevich’s Mineola home.
Nicki Minaj, the Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling rapper of “Anaconda”, “Super Bass” and other hits, was born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad and raised in Queens.
In a post on her website, Minaj, 39, called her father’s death “the most devastating loss of my life.”
