A Bronx mom accused of killing one kid and injuring another six in a drunken car crash on the Upper West Side repeatedly taunted the children in the minutes before the crash with a sick “guessing game,” prosecutors said yesterday.
As Carmen Huertas drunkenly hurtled down the Henry Hudson Parkway in a car jammed with seven kids — including her daughter — she mocked their fears of her drunken weaving on the road, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said.
“En route, Huertas repeatedly engaged in a guessing game with the children, asking them to raise their hands if they thought they would make it home without crashing, or whether they thought the car would crash on the highway,” the DA said.
Morgenthau revealed the chilling details when he announced that Huertas had been indicted on a slew of criminal charges, including vehicular manslaughter, for the horrific crash that killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado.
Rosado’s family had been hoping for charges that could put Huertas away for life, and Morgenthau said he sympathized.
“In a case like this, no sentence could be too tough,” he said, but, “the law is the law.”
The DA gave a chilling account of the hell ride.
He said Huertas had invited six of her daughter’s school-aged friends over to her home for a weekend sleepover.
On Saturday night, however, she loaded the kids and her 14-month old son into her Mercury Sable station wagon to take them to a party for a relative in Chelsea.
The mom started boozing at the bash, “drinking alcohol, including cognac,” Morgenthau said.
When she loaded the kids back into her car at 12:30 a.m., the father of her son tried to convince her not to drive.
When she “dismissed his concerns,” he took the toddler out of the car, but did not “make efforts to remove any of the other children,” the DA said.
Investigators believe Huertas was going 68 mph in a 50-mph zone when she lost control of the car. Three of the kids, including Rosado, were ejected in the crash.
“Huertas crawled from the vehicle and removed her daughter” while the other kids crawled out on their own. One of the victims remains hospitalized in serious condition.
Huertas, who’s on suicide watch and still hospitalized with a shoulder injury, is expected to be arraigned on the charges next month. Her lawyer did not return a call for comment.