A hit-and-run driver who killed a New York University student pleaded guilty Friday, but will not serve jail time. Greg Cergol reports.
The parents of an 18-year-old boy struck and killed last summer in the Hamptons were stunned to hear a judge sentence the driver responsible to serve only six months of community service.
Daniel Campbell left court on Friday without comment after the 20-year-old pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a crash last August.
Campbell’s vehicle had struck and killed Devesh Samtani, as the 18-year-old was walking from a house party while on vacation in Amagansett.
In court on Friday, Campbell admitted he never stopped to try and help Samtani. Campbell’s lawyer said the 20-year-old accepted responsibility for what happened, but he did so with a promise from Judge Richard Ambro to sentence the man to six months of community service.
“Please explain why I can’t get my son back and the boy who killed my son can go scot-free,” his mother, Mala Samtani, asked outside the Suffolk County court.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Suffolk County district attorney said prosecutors had asked for a prison term of one to three years. But the court has the independent authority to sentence as it sees appropriate.
“If he would have been given some jail time, at least it would have given him a chance to reconcile that what he did was wrong,” Kishore Samtani, the boy’s father, said.
Samtani’s family, who traveled from Hong Kong for Friday’s hearing, said the judge appears to be ignoring their pain — a pain that causes his mom to sleep with a photo of her son. His dad has also tattooed his son’s name and face onto his arms.
At just 18 years old, Samtani had already written a children’s book about COVID-19 with plans to donate the proceeds, and was killed jus two weeks before enrolling at New York University.
The judge provided no reason in court why his sentence would include no jail time, and no further comment was offered by a court spokesperson.
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Maybe the judge needs to take the young man’s place and go to jail. Sounds good to me.
That idiotic judge, should be fired, if it was your kid this happened to, I bet u would change your tune.It’s judges like u that ruin the system, u don’t deserve to be a judge, by letting this kid off killing another person by hit+ run, and leaving the seen,knowing he could still be alive. Your karma will get u.
REVOLUTION will be the SOLUTION, when you fools ever going to figure this out? TYRANNY reigns while the sheeple just keep getting sheared! The NWO-elitists need to be informed that they will suffer the consequences if they don’t stop theitr totalitarian wet-dream of making life a living nightmare for the rest of “US”! BAA, BAA, BAA…
Goes to show you money can get you free from anything you do no matter how bad.
Asses like this judge and the demoncRAT judges and G. Soros prosecutors need to have their daughters or sons hit by a driver like this and then you will see justice work. Nothing seems to be working normally since President Trump lost (was cheated) in the election due to the lying and fake news organizations. China Joe cam take all the bribes he wants for foreign countries and so can his son and brother and nothing is done. This judge is just as bad.
I wonder how much $$$$$$$ the judge or his campaign received from the parents or their minions. Hi