Hit-and-run driver in fatal road rage crash on Route 130 avoids prison time

The Philadelphia resident who set off a fatal, multi-vehicle crash on Route 130 in Robbinsville in June 2019 and then left the scene was sentenced to probation earlier this year.

Robert Torres, 29, initially faced seven charges including vehicular homicide, causing a death while an unlicensed driver and assault by auto.

In January, Torres took a plea deal on the charge of leaving the scene of a crash with serious injuries, court records show. In March, a judge sentenced him to four years of probation.

The crash killed Vincent “Vinnie” Zitani, 23, of Hamilton, who was driving his prized 1989 Pontiac Trans Am, which he’d worked on restoring with his father.

Zitani died during a renewed time in his young life, his family said at the time. He’d beaten a painkiller addiction stemming from a chronic joint condition, was working more and he’d just put the Trans Am back on the road.

His sister, Jill Cipriano, said the sentence was not the best outcome, but after nearly five years, Torres going to prison was not going to bring Vinnie back and the family just wanted the case over.

The idea of a trial was likely too much to bear for most with all the details of the wreck likely coming to light again, she said.

“It’s nice to know it’s over with and we can somewhat move on,” Cipriano said this week.

The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the case. Torres’ lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Zitani was driving southbound on Route 130 when his car was struck by Torres’ work van, also southbound. That sent Zitani careening across the median into two northbound vehicles. Six members of a family in one of the vehicles were all hospitalized, including a teenage girl who was airlifted to a local trauma center.

Police and Zitani’s family said after the crash that Torres’ actions were a combination of terrible driving and road rage. Several motorists were so alarmed by the van’s actions that they called 911 and at least one took a picture of it in the moments before it struck Zitani’s Trans Am.

Two women from Trenton - “angels,” Zitani family said – stopped and were with Zitani when he took his last breaths, and stayed with his body for hours, so he would not be alone, Jill said in 2019. They met them at Vinnie’s funeral.

Zitani’s family later started a roadside memorial near the crash scene that grew into one of the largest in the area. The family still tends to it, cutting the grass and gardening the flowers, which grow among permanent pieces that hold keepsakes.

Vincent Zitani lives on, in name, through the nephew he never met. His brother Tyler Zitani named his son after Vincent, Cipriano said.

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Kevin Shea may be reached at [email protected]