Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Ramon Pena, 39, was sentenced to up to 22 years in prison for causing a deadly collision with a box truck on Metropolitan Avenue at the Metro Mall exit on July 30, 2020. A 25-year-old motorist died as a result of the crash.

District Attorney Katz said, “The defendant left a trail of destruction that culminated in a deadly collision when a young man was tragically killed as the result of the defendant’s reckless driving. Every individual who gets behind the wheel of a vehicle bears the moral and legal responsibility to do so safely. The senseless mayhem that the defendant caused is unacceptable. He has now been held accountable for his actions and will serve time in prison as imposed by the Court.”

Pena, of Albany Crescent in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the second degree and leaving the scene of an incident on September 13, 2022. Today, Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder sentenced the defendant to seven and one-third to 22 years in prison.

District Attorney Katz said that on June 30, 2020, at approximately 12:00 P.M., Pena stole a box truck from 101st Avenue in Jamaica and started driving the vehicle in an unsafe manner through several neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn, striking approximately 20 parked and moving cars along the way.

Continuing, the DA said, an eyewitness reported seeing the box truck traveling upwards of 50 miles per hour, running red lights and driving on the wrong side of the street.

At approximately 1:00 P.M, the defendant was observed running a steady red light at the intersection of Rentar Plaza and Metropolitan Avenue and slamming into the driver’s side of a black Honda CR-V, operated by Hamlet Cruz-Gomez. The 25-year-old victim was transported to a local area hospital where he was pronounced dead as the result of the injuries sustained in the collision.

The DA said, the defendant proceeded to jump out of the box truck and run into the nearby Metropolitan Subway Station, where he was apprehended by the police.

The investigation was conducted by detectives of the New York City Police Department’s Collision Investigation Squad. Also assisting in the investigation were police officers with the NYPD’s 104th and 90th precincts.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Zawistowski, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter J. McCormack III and John Kosinski, Senior Deputy Bureau Chiefs, Karen Ross, Deputy Bureau Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for the Major Crimes Division Daniel A. Saunders.