Borracho Puta Kills Beanette In DUI Crash
Carmen Huertas, here with daughter Brittany Gonzalez, who was in the car with six pals on the way to a slumber party.
Kid dies in 'drunken' car crash 'Drunk' mom joked: 'Who thinks we're gonna get in accident?'
By EDMUND DeMARCHE, FRANK ROSARIO, AMBER SUTHERLAND and LARRY CELONA
Last Updated: 10:36 AM, October 12, 2009
Posted: 3:49 AM, October 12, 2009
Moments before killing a girl in a car crash, an allegedly boozed-up mom joked, "Who thinks something's gonna happen? Raise your hand. Who thinks we're gonna get into an accident?" one of her seven young passengers told The Post last night.
All of the girls raised their hands -- and were proven tragically right.
The drunken mom,
Carmen Huertas, 31, lost control of her car with the seven girls inside as she sped up the West Side of Manhattan on the way to her Bronx home for a slumber party early yesterday, authorities said.
Leandra Rosado, 11, was killed in the crash.
Another passenger,
Yismel Rosario, 14, recalled Huertas posing question to the group just before they hit the road after a relative's party in Chelsea before 12:40 a.m.
Yismel said the trip in Huertas' crammed car from West 20th Street started normally -- but soon turned terrifying.
"The car started swerving back and forth," Yismel said at New York Hospital.
"I was like, 'Oh, my God!' Then it flipped over.
Gisele,
Kayla and Leandra flew out of the car. Their eyes were closed. I got out of the car and went to my sister, [Gisele]. I held her and said, 'If you can hear me, nod your head.' I told her it would be OK, that help is on the way."
Gisele, who spent nine hours in surgery, survived with two broken legs and a back injury.
Leandra died less than an hour after the crash.
"I call this murder," said her enraged dad, Lenny Rosado.
He noted that he had named his daughter after his sister -- who died 13 years ago when she drove drunk and crashed.
Rosado said his daughter, a student at Greenwich Village Middle School, had called from the road Friday night on her way to Huertas' home, asking if she could spend the weekend there.
Huertas -- whose daughter,
Brittany Gonzalez, was a friend of Leandra and was also in the car -- was driving the girls at the time.
The dad said yes, as long as Leandra stopped back home in Chelsea Saturday to get a change of clothes.
The girls then spent Friday night at Huertas' home, painting one another's nails, listening to music and singing karaoke.
As agreed, Huertas brought Leandra back to her West 17th Street home Saturday at around 7:30 p.m. for a quick change.
Rosado then took his daughter in a cab over to the party at the home of Huertas' ex-husband, Brittany's dad, on 20th Street to meet back up with the group.
Rosado said that he met Huertas briefly and that she didn't appear drunk.
He gave his daughter a quick hug and money for pizza.
"I'll see you tomorrow," the dad said before leaving.
It was the last time he saw his daughter alive.
At 2 a.m. yesterday, he got a call from Brittany's father, summoning him to St. Luke's Hospital.
Leandra had been in Huertas' tan 1998 Mercury Sable when the drunken mom got behind the wheel and slammed the overloaded car into a guardrail near the 96th Street exit of the Henry Hudson Parkway, flipping it off the highway, cops said.
Sources said Huertas was doing 68 mph in a 50 mph zone and failed a Breathalyzer test with a blood-alcohol level of .13 percent, more than 1½ times the legal limit.
The mom, who suffered a broken arm, faces charges that include manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, assault and DWI. A police source said the car had four seat belts, "but, obviously, they weren't being used."
The six surviving girls were being treated for injuries, including broken bones and blunt trauma.
Sources identified the other girl ejected from the car as Kayla Fernandez, 11.
Yismel, who was riding in the front passenger seat with her seat belt on, suffered a bruise to the head.
She said that before the accident, Huertas was acting silly and giggly, "a little bit drunk and stuff."
Rosado, who had raised Leandra as a single parent since she was 4, was struggling to come to grips with the reality that there would be no more Friday movie nights or kickball in the park with his only child.
When asked what he'd like to tell Huertas, he replied, "My daughter is gone because of you. As a parent, as a mother, where was your common sense?
"You put all those kids in danger. You put other people in danger. You're taking other people's lives into your own hands. You don't have the right."
He said Leandra wanted to be a singer or a veterinarian when she grew up.
When he heard she died, "I was screaming. I was asking, 'Why?' I felt so lost. I felt so much pain. Why my daughter? She was my entire world."
Leandra's mother, who is divorced from the father and has three other children, shared her ex-husband's rage.
"My daughter died too soon, and she wouldn't have died if that woman hadn't been drinking and driving," said the mom, Joida Quinones.
Brittany's godfather, Jason Ruiz, said he had been at the 20th Street party and "I saw her drinking, yes, but when I left [at 9 p.m.], she was fine."
He said Brittany was doing well, but relatives were keeping the news of Leandra's death from her.
Records show that other than a 2006 license suspension for letting her insurance lapse, Huertas has a clean driving record.
The father of another girl involved in the crash,
Amanda Vasquez, 14, said he knew Huertas socially and agreed that she didn't have a drinking problem.
"Carmen drinks when there's a party," he said.
In The Bronx, at Huertas' home, relatives expressed sympathy for Leandra's family.
"We want to show our deepest condolences to the little girl's family," said Huertas' sister, Yolanda Velez, 38.
"My sister is a good mother, and these parents wouldn't let her take the children home if she wasn't. She's not a monster. She's not an alcoholic."
Velez added that her sister was plagued by guilt.
"My sister's doing bad," she said. "She wants to kill herself, because of what happened."
In July, another woman, Diane Schuler, high on pot and booze, drove the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway in Westchester, crashed into another car and killed eight people, including herself, her young daughter and three young nieces.
