QUEENS MAN INDICTED FOR CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE

 

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Umar Khan was charged with criminally negligent homicide, reckless driving and speeding for driving at nearly 100 mph on the outbound JFK Expressway ramp before losing control of the car, which went over a cement retaining wall and landed on the Belt Parkway below, killing his two teenage passengers.

DA Katz said: “The lives of two young people were cut short in a collision we allege was the result of reckless driving. The rules of the road are meant to keep drivers, passengers and everyone else on the highway safe and disregarding them all too often ends in tragedy. We will seek justice for the young victims and their loved ones.”

Khan, 21, of 219th Street in Queens Village, was arraigned in Queens Supreme Court on a five-count indictment charging him with two counts of criminally negligent homicide, reckless driving, driving in excess of the maximum speed limit and operating a vehicle at unreasonable speed. Justice Marcia Hirsch ordered Khan to return to court on March 4. If convicted, Khan faces up to four years in prison.

According to the charges:

• On January 29, 2023, at approximately 11:44 p.m., Khan was operating a white 2011 BMW traveling eastbound on an elevated portion of the JFK Expressway and driving at a high rate of speed.
• Khan entered a curve at approximately 98 mph. He veered left and hit the retaining wall causing the car to go over the barrier and flip multiple times before landing on the Belt Parkway.
• The front passenger, Sukhmani Singh, 18, of 87th Drive in Bellerose, who was pinned inside of the vehicle, was extracted and removed to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center where he was pronounced dead from his injuries.
• The rear passenger, Ronish Kush, 16, of Erick Lane in New Hyde Park, was ejected from the vehicle onto the roadway and was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS.
• The victims were picking up Khan from an incoming flight at JFK Airport.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Cox, of the District Attorney’s Vehicular Homicide Unit within the Homicide Bureau, is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Jonathan Selkowe, Unit Chief, John Kosinski, Bureau Chief, and Karen Ross, Deputy Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Shawn Clark.