SLAY RAPS FOR DRIVER
Hit brakes too late, kills 2 doing stunts, say Bx. prosecutors
The 23-year-old daredevil driver who killed two of his passengers and critically injured a third as he did doughnuts at a Bronx streetcorner hit the brakes just one second before the fatal crash into a parked Kenworth fuel truck, prosecutors said Friday.
Enrique Lopez was showboating in front of a group of car enthusiasts, spinning in tight circles at 70 mph in his Chrysler 300 early Sunday morning when the car slid sideways and crashed into the truck, data police recovered from the mangled car revealed.
Lopez was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and several other offenses, including reckless endangerment. A Bronx Criminal Court judge ordered him held on $150,000 bail during a brief arraignment proceeding Friday.
The crash occurred near Bryant and Viele Aves. in Hunts Point, a spot where “Fast and Furious” fans go to show off their stunt driving skills.
Lopez’s Chrysler 300 — a massive U-Haul sticker wrapped around the car’s body — had a stolen Dodge Charger motor under the hood and three passengers: 21-year-old Gilvante “Gio” Roberson, 15-year-old Sabrina Villagomez and 17-year-old Aaliyah Torres, seated inside, police and prosecutors said.
Following the crash, Lopez and his three passengers were rushed to area hospitals, but Roberson and Villagomez didn’t survive.
Torres survived the crash but remained in St. Barnabas Hospital on Friday with a fractured spine, pelvis, brain bleed and liver damage, prosecutors said. She was put in a medically induced coma as she mended.
“She is recovering slowly,” her aunt said Monday.
Lopez wasn’t seriously hurt and was taken to Harlem Hospital. He was criminally charged and arraigned after he was discharged from the hospital Thursday.
“They were having a takeover car meet where they take over the block and lock the block up and do doughnuts and stuff,” said an employee of the fuel company that owns the struck truck, who gave his name only as Chad, 28. “The guy was going about 100 mph, it was very fast. Hit a bump. The car skid right into the truck.”
Roberson’s mother on Monday said her deceased son loved car stunts and wouldn’t want Lopez to be punished.
“Giovante was a very loving, caring person, so at that moment, he probably wouldn’t even find his friend at fault, even though he could have been at fault,” said the mother, Sabrina Roberson, 44. “I just know my son. He wouldn’t have wanted none of this for none of the people involved.”
“I feel so bad for all the families involved because I didn’t just lose my son,” the mother added. “Somebody else lost their daughter. The guy that was driving lost his freedom, possibly.”
The crash was so horrific, she said she suspected the worst right away.
Shortly after the crash, she said she was on FaceTime with someone at the scene who showed her the mangled car.
“She said they pulled him out, and he was unresponsive,” the mother said through tears. “When she showed me the car, I already knew he was gone.”
Roberson spent the hours before the crash documenting the car meet and posting clips of the dangerous stunts on his Instagram page, which is flooded with drivers doing doughnuts and other tricks.
In one of the posts, cars take over a Queens street and burn rubber as a crowd of people cheer the drivers on from the side of the road.
The last post made to the Instagram account was right around the time of the crash.
Lopez, who lives in Far Rockaway, was arrested Jan. 16 for allegedly stealing a 2023 Acura in Middle Village.
He fled when police tried to pull him over, but officers caught up with him and arrested him, police said. In his possession were screwdrivers and a number of key fobs, which car thieves often hack to gain easy access to vehicles, police said.
Lopez was ordered released without bail at the arraignment, court records show.
On June 6, he was charged with criminal possession of stolen property after he was found driving a car with a back seat filled with stolen electric scooter parts.
The parts were recovered by the owner of the scooter, who tracked Lopez down with the help of an Apple air tag on the stolen vehicle.
When questioned, he told the owner of the stolen scooter that he had “bought the parts from a friend in the Bronx,” according to court papers.
Lopez pleaded guilty to the stolen property charge, but didn’t receive any jail time, court records show.
A man who died a week ago in a Rikers Island jail on one of the coldest nights of the winter was transferred to a new cell in a different jail early that morning over fears for his safety, his brother told the Daily News Friday.
Manuel Luna, 30, whose friends call “Panda,” was originally housed in a dorm in a set of structures on the island known as “The Sprungs,” which were supposed to be temporary but have been in place since the 1990s.
Luna was moved to cell No. 4 in unit 5A in the George R. Vierno Center at 2 a.m. on Jan. 20. He was dead 19 hours later.
“He wanted to move to a cell when he would feel safer,” said his brother Angel Luna, 35, a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy stationed in Bahrain. “That morning he spoke to our niece and his lawyer. He was upbeat about his case and ready to continue his life, and then this happened.”
The News previously reported the 5-foot-9, 240-pound Luna was found unresponsive just before 9 p.m. by a correction captain who was bringing him a mattress on a night when, records show, the outside temperature dropped below 25 degrees.
The city Medical Examiner has yet to conclude what killed him.
Court records show Luna was arrested Oct. 5 on robbery charges. The case included allegations that while Luna stole a battery from an e-bike in Harlem, he punched a man.
On Friday, relatives and advocates gathered outside City Hall to demand “accountability” for Luna’s death, which is subject to a series of reviews.
“The Correction Department is supposed to be responsible for the welfare and safety of the inmates,” said a second brother, Billy Torres, 39. “We demand answers. Our brother’s death will not be in vain.”
Torres claimed correction officials mishandled the death notification. An officer and then a chaplain called Luna’s niece but only asked for her address, and declined to say what the call was about.
“They said, ‘We can’t tell you,’ ” he said. “She thought it was a scam. She called back and they still wouldn’t tell us.”
Correction spokesman Frank Dwyer countered that the department kept the name confidential until a relative was reached Jan. 21.
Department policy requires confirmation the correct next-of-kin has been reached and in-person notification is arranged before news of a death is disclosed.
Luna was born in 1993 in the city but grew up largely in Costa Rica. He and his sister were separated from their two brothers for years before they finally reunited in roughly 2009, Angel Luna said.
“It was always a back-and-forth thing because of the distance,” he said, noting his brother “grew up in hardship.”
In 2012, at age 19, Luna was arrested for his role in five muggings in Washington Heights, court records show. He was convicted in 2013 of robbery and burglary in Manhattan and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. He served some portion of that time in Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining.
After his release on parole from prison in November 2022, Luna was assisted by a nonprofit called Black and Pink, which supports LGBTQ and HIV-positive prisoners.
Organizer Chelsea Meacham described Luna as a “sweet and gentle being.” She said that the group helped him navigate his housing needs and his effort to find a job.
He struggled with the red tape that often confronts former prisoners. “It was sort of laughable the hoops he had to go through just to get an ID,” Meacham said. “There was kind of an endless loop he was stuck in. He could not catch a break.”
In his bio for Black and Pink, Luna described how he was changing.
“I was young and ignorant, never wanted to take advice. But I realize it’s time to grow up and learn from my mistakes.”
Luna lived in temporary housing and then moved to a shelter, Meacham said. He also participated in a post-prison program that provided job training, his family said.
Court records show Luna was arrested Sept. 24 for robbery following the incident involving the e-bike on W. 116th St. near Malcolm X. Blvd.
The victim told cops that he saw two men remove the battery from his e-bike, the records show. When the victim tried to intervene, he was punched in the chest by one of the men and then punched several times in the face by both.
The alleged assault was captured on video, the records show. Luna was arrested 11 days later.
Luna died a day after Mayor Adams vetoed a bill aimed at banning solitary confinement in the jails on the grounds that it would make the system less safe.
“The veto shows a disregard for lowincome black and brown New Yorkers,” said Council Member Tiffany Caban (D-Queens). “A veto says I want to keep pumping money into criminalization and I refuse to put money into housing and mental health.”
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said later Friday that the council intends to vote to override the mayor’s veto on Tuesday. Adams said solitary confinement “only makes violence worse in our jails and city.”
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The NYPD closed a dozen Queens massage parlors that have been accused of being brothels, cops said Friday.
At least seven of the alleged houses of ill repute were shut down on Thursday night as cops did a coordinated quality-of-life initiative in Corona.
The initiative was overseen by Mayor Adams, who took part in a tactical meeting at the 115th Precinct before cops went out to close the massage parlors down.
Five other massage parlors were closed a week earlier, cops said. All 12 were located along a stretch of Roosevelt Ave.
The storefronts were shuttered after “investigations were conducted into allegations of illegal prostitution taking place at the establishments,” an NYPD spokesman said.
Before the raid, undercover cops had gone into the parlors. During their visits, workers agreed to perform sex acts in exchange for a fee, police said.
No arrests were made nor were any summonses given out during the raid, but cops issued New York Supreme Court orders to close the parlors through the city’s nuisance abatement law.
Store owners will have to litigate these cases in court and prove that they are being used for lawful purposes, an NYPD spokesman said.
NYPD Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, who took part in the initiative, said the police would use every tool at their disposal to close houses of ill repute.
“We will come, we will send out undercovers and we will do everything within the law to shut you down,” he told WABC news. “If you open up again under a different name, we’re going to repeat the process again, come back and shut you down again.”