ARREST IN HORRIFYING BELT PARKWAY CRASH
Passenger with broken body claims her former friend was racing; prosecutors say driver pumped full of drugs & booze
It took nearly seven months for the law to catch up with a drag-racing suspect in a fiery near-fatal Queens crash.
Driver Tina Daley was busted Jan. 3 on a slew of charges including vehicular assault, speeding, driving while intoxicated and driving under the influence of drugs for the June 27 wreck on the Belt Parkway.
Prosecutors say the 29-year-old Brooklyn woman had alcohol and fentanyl in her system while driving 112 mph. The highspeed crash nearly killed her passenger and another driver.
“I am thankful I have life,” Janniel Denton, 29, who was riding in Daley’s Honda Accord when it crashed, told the Daily News last week. “No one would have thought I would have made it, but I did, thank God.”
Denton’s back was broken when Daley, a friend so close Denton called her a cousin, rear-ended a gray BMW.
Denton spent a month in the hospital and endured five grueling surgeries after the 1:50 a.m. wreck. She now accuses her former friend, along with Daley’s dad, of encouraging a coverup of the crash.
“They wanted me to lie and say I was sleeping and I didn’t see anything,” said Denton, who adds Daley was racing the BMW and another vehicle. “But I was fully conscious. I wasn’t drunk.”
Daley was released without bail after her Jan. 4 arraignment and is due back in Queens Criminal Court on Friday
“While it’s a pending case? No,” Daley said when asked Sunday for comment on the crash. “I think my lawyer would advise against that as well. That’s not the smartest idea.”
The drivers were rocketing west along the Belt Parkway when Daley’s Honda hit the BMW at Exit 17 West near Cohancy St., sending the luxury vehicle spinning out of control before it stopped in the left lane.
The BMW’s driver, Shemar Stephens, was left in a coma after he was ejected from his car. He insists he was not in a drag race.
“The only thing I remember was I had left my friend’s house and that’s about it,” he said. “I was about to head home, and I don’t remember nothing else — just waking up in the hospital.”
He said he doesn’t know Daley and maintained, “I know I wasn’t racing.”
Denton’s account contradicts that. The maimed passenger recalls going to a backyard party with Daley — and said the BMW driver and the driver of a third car involved in the crash, an Infiniti, were all there.
Daley “was racing” the other two cars, said Denton.
Stephens’ mom, Sherry Francis, said she heard after the crash that her son attended a party, which was a meetup for a number of car clubs. But he did not know the other drivers involved in the crash that nearly killed him, she says.
“Everything right now is hearsay and speculation,” she said. “Coincidence happens every day, things happen every day. Not because they were coming from the same place does it mean they know each other.”
After hitting Stephens’ BMW, Daley veered right from the impact, hitting a Subaru before coming to a stop, police sources said.
Meanwhile, the Infiniti driver barreled in from behind, hitting the BMW and clipping another car before speeding off, sources said. The driver of the Infiniti has not been located.
Cops suspect but could not prove that
Daley was racing the other drivers involved. She denied she was drag racing, but cops were able to use the Accord’s black box to determine she was going 112 mph when she hit Stephens’ BMW, sources said.
Daley’s car had livery plates, and police sources confirmed she had a livery license and used the Accord for work. She did not have a fare when she crashed.
She was hospitalized after the crash, and cops secured a judge’s order to test her blood, leading to the discovery that she had fentanyl and cannabis in her system. She also was over the 0.08 percent legal limit of alcohol, according to a criminal complaint.
“I asked if she wanted me to drive, but she assured us that she was good,” Denton said. “We were driving fine on the road going towards the highway, but as soon as we get to the highway she was speeding.”
Denton said she begged her friend to slow down.
“I said, ‘Hey, slow down. Why are you going so fast?’ I felt like I was invisible in the car because she wasn’t listening to me.
“She just ran right into the back of the [BMW] and I saw it all,” Denton said. “The speed she was going, she couldn’t slow down in time.”
Daley’s airbag went off, but Denton’s didn’t. Denton’s leg was mangled and her back was broken, but adrenaline and the help of a good Samaritan got her clear of the car as it burned.
Denton shared an apartment with Daley at the time of the crash, but they no longer live together.
“That’s all messed up now, I don’t consider her my cousin anymore,” Denton said.
“After everything, Tina did not have no remorse . ... She told people she was only going 60 miles per hour. That’s what she told my landlord, the neighbors.”
“Nothing will ever be the same again for me,” she added. “They had to do a bone fusion with my spine, so I won’t have the flexibility I used to have.”
Denton, who worked in human resources before the crash, has undergone extensive physical therapy and only started to walk again in October.
“My ankle has metals and plates in it. I have arthritis right now,” she added. “I have scars on both knees that are very traumatizing to look at.”
Stephens also suffered grievous injuries. He was in a coma for two weeks and needed surgery to install plates in his jaw. When he regained consciousness, half his body wasn’t functioning.
“I basically lost my whole right side,” Stephens said. “Both my hands and my feet weren’t working.”
He was in the hospital for two months, in a rehab facility for another two months and has yet to fully recover.
“I feel lucky because I’m still here,” Stephens said. “It could have been a whole different story.”
The NYPD has been at war against drag racing, which takes several forms, ranging from highway speed contests to impromptu gatherings where drivers spin doughnuts at intersections, parking lots or traffic plazas.
There is no data on how many people die from such wreckless driving, though it’s clear speeding is a factor in numerous roadway deaths. Speeding factored in 31 of 159 New York City traffic deaths in 2022 for which data are available — a rate of 21%.
A notorious case involving drag racing occurred Nov. 20, 2020, when Daniel Crawford, 53, died on his way to Queens Hospital Center, where he worked as a phlebotomist. Crawford’s car was T-boned by one of two drivers drag racing each other.