A self-described wellness advocate and substance abuse counselor who drunkenly crashed his pickup truck into a Fourth of July barbecue on the Lower East Side last year, killing four people, was convicted of murder Monday.
The man, Daniel Hyden, 46, had been kicked out of a bar before he lost control of his Ford F-150, rammed through a fence at Corlears Hook Park and crushed the victims, prosecutors said. Seven others were injured.
After a two-week, nonjury trial, Justice April A. Newbauer found him guilty on 12 counts, including second-degree murder and aggravated assault. Mr. Hyden faces a sentence of 25 years to life for the most serious charges. His sentencing is scheduled for December.
At a news conference Monday, Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said Mr. Hyden’s actions were “irresponsible, callous and criminal.” Mr. Hyden sped through two stop signs and plowed into the fence, Mr. Bragg said.
“Even after he hit 11 people, he was still revving the engine,” Mr. Bragg said. “The car only stops because it was on top of human beings.”
The barbecue picnic in the crowded park had featured hours of music and dancing.
Liliana Ruiz recalled that she had just left to run to her nearby apartment to use the bathroom, leaving her adult daughter and grandson behind. She returned just before 9 p.m. and heard something that, at first, sounded like fireworks, she said. Then there were screams.
Mr. Ruiz spotted her grandson standing alone, she recalled. As she looked around in a panic, she saw a pickup truck on the bleachers where her group had been sitting. She ran toward the truck, she said, and saw her daughter pinned underneath.
“I just thought, ‘I’m watching my daughter die right now,’” she recounted to a packed courtroom in October.
In the following days, four people died: Lucille Pinkney, Herman Pinkney, Emily Ruiz and Ana Morel.
In court, his lawyer, Theodore Herlich, said that Mr. Hyden had an injured foot and had tried to decelerate.
But prosecutors argued that Mr. Hyden intentionally put his foot on the gas. He then attempted to flee by placing the truck in reverse to continue driving, prosecutors said, until witnesses stopped him by removing the key from the ignition.
A prosecutor, Matthew Bogdanos, pointed to a book Mr. Hyden had written about his history with addiction to argue that, on that day, he was aware of the risks of his drinking and driving. In a passage read in court, Mr. Hyden wrote that he “was a real danger to others and myself when I was on the road intoxicated.”
The injured people, including Ms. Ruiz’s daughter, Emily, were taken to hospitals. Emily Ruiz, who was brain-dead, died several days later. The three others were pronounced dead at the scene.
Liliana Ruiz was one of the victims’ relatives who testified in the trial. On Oct. 20, as she spoke before a gallery filled with friends and other relatives of victims, multiple people wept and one woman, overcome, ran from the courtroom.
On Monday, after the verdict was read, several people lightly clapped their hands and then rushed outside, where they gathered and hugged.
For years, leaders in New York City have tried to curtail traffic deaths. An initiative called Vision Zero was launched in 2014 by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to reduce fatalities to nothing.
In 2024, the year of the Lower East Side crash, the city recorded 251 fatalities and 51,555 injuries, a decline of about 8 percent from the year before.
In the first half of this year, there were 87 traffic fatalities, equaling a record set for the same period in 2018, according to the city.
Samantha Latson contributed reporting.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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