Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz today announced that Jason Bical pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular manslaughter. The defendant was driving 92 mph on the Belt Parkway when he struck and killed a 63-year-old motorist stopped for a minor collision. Bical was under the influence of cocaine, marijuana and alcohol at the time of the December 2020 incident.

District Attorney Katz said, “It is infuriating that this defendant, who already had two prior Driving While Ability Impaired by Alcohol convictions from Brooklyn in 2011 in 2015, made the deadly decision to get behind the wheel of a car while significantly intoxicated with drugs and alcohol. The defendant was driving more than forty miles per hour above the legal speed limit with cocaine in his vehicle when he caused this horrific incident. His guilty plea cannot undo this tragedy.”

Bical, 36, of East 73rd Street in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty yesterday before Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael B. Aloise to vehicular manslaughter in the first degree. Justice Aloise indicated he will sentence the defendant to five to fifteen years in prison on December 13, 2022.

At about 12:45 a.m. on December 9, 2020, the defendant was driving a white 2017 Chevrolet Malibu, registered to his family-owned business, Bical Chevrolet of Valley Stream, westbound on the Belt Parkway near 131^st Street at 92 mph when he struck the victim, Taher Ali Hassan, also of Brooklyn. Mr. Hassan was rushed to a local hospital with severe head trauma and later died due to his injuries.

DA Katz said Bical’s blood alcohol level was .174 – twice the legal limit. Further toxicology results showed that the defendant also had significant amount of both cocaine and marijuana in his system at the time of the crash. Two ziplock bags of cocaine were recovered from the center console of the defendant’s car. The Crash Data Recorder recovered from Bical’s vehicle revealed that he was driving 92 mph just five seconds before striking the victim. The posted speed limit on the Belt Parkway is 50 mph. Bical was the Service Department manager at Bical Auto Mall in Brooklyn at the time of the incident.

Assistant District Attorney Timothy R. McGrath, of the District Attorney’s Felony Trials Bureau II, is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Mark Osnowitz, Bureau Chief, Rosemary Chao, Deputy Bureau Chief, Charissa Ilardi, Unit Chief, Michael Kavanagh, Section Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of the Supreme Court Trial Division Pishoy Yacoub.