Press Release

LONG ISLAND WOMAN INDICTED FOR KILLING NYPD POLICE OFFICER IN FATAL HIT AND RUN CRASH LAST MONTH

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Jessica Beauvais, 32, has been indicted by a Queens grand jury charging her with aggravated manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and other crimes for allegedly driving while intoxicated and striking a New York City Highway Police Officer on the Long Island Expressway in the early morning hours of April 27, 2021. The responding officer was struck with such force he was thrown nearly 40 feet in the air.

District Attorney Katz said, “As alleged, there is a list of bad choices, from drinking and getting high and getting behind the wheel of a car, that ended tragically with the defendant running down Highway Officer Anastasios Tsakos and then trying to get away. Posthumously promoted to detective, Officer Anastasios Tsakos was struck while directing traffic and protecting New Yorkers in the aftermath of a fatal one-car crash early that morning. This is heartbreaking, and a mother is left alone to raise a six-year-old and a three-year-old.”

Beauvais, 32, of Myrtle Avenue in Hempstead, Long Island, will be arraigned on May 25, 2021 in Queens Supreme Court on a 13-count indictment charging her with aggravated manslaughter in the second degree, manslaughter in the second degree, aggravated criminally negligent homicide, vehicular manslaughter in the second degree, leaving the scene of an incident without reporting, unlawful fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle in the second and third degree, 2-counts of operating a motor vehicle while under influence of alcohol, operating a motor vehicle while impaired by combined use of drugs or of alcohol and drugs, reckless driving, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree and failure to exercise due care when operating a motor vehicle when approaching an authorized emergency vehicle. If convicted, Beauvais faces up to 15 years in prison.

District Attorney Katz said that at approximately 12:30 a.m. on April 27, 2021, police responded to the scene of a one-car crash on the Long Island Expressway ramp entrance to the Clearview Expressway. A driver, who was headed eastbound on the LIE, lost control of the car and slammed into a concrete wall. The automobile caught fire and the driver and two passengers were pulled from the vehicle. They survived, however, a third passenger died at the scene.

Continuing, the DA said, NYPD officers responded to the scene of the crash and as they began to investigate Detective Tsakos assisted with traffic flow. At that time, defendant Beauvais – behind the wheel of a  2013 Volkswagen Passat – was going eastbound on the LIE. The defendant was allegedly driving at a high rate of speed as she approached the scene of the one-car crash.

According to the charges, the defendant allegedly struck Detective Tsakos. The impact of the nearly two-ton car threw the officer in the air briefly before he landed in a nearby patch of grass. Beauvais allegedly did not stop or slow down after striking the victim and continued to travel several exits before taking the Horace Harding Expressway off ramp. That’s when her vehicle jumped the curb and mounted the sidewalk, where police surrounded the defendant in the vehicle. Beauvais then allegedly attempted to flee the scene. She put her car in reverse and rammed the police vehicle behind her once before coming to a full stop. Members of the NYPD then immediately arrested the defendant.

According to the charges, DA Katz said, the defendant was taken to the 112th Police Precinct where she submitted to an intoxilyzer test, which was administered over 2 hours following the fatal crash. The results of the test showed the defendant allegedly had a blood alcohol content of .15 – which is above the legal limit of .08 in New York State.

Officer Tsakos was rushed to a nearby hospital but died as a result of the injuries.

The investigation was conducted by Detectives Patrick McMahon, Walter Bowden and Edward Behringer of the New York City Police Department’s Collision Investigation Squad under the supervision of Sergeant Robert Denig. Also assisting in the investigation were Assistant District Attorneys Bryan Kotowski, of the Homicide Bureau, and John Kosinski, Deputy Bureau Chief of Homicide.

Assistant District Attorney Gregory Lasak of the District Attorney’s Career Criminals Major Crimes Bureau is prosecuting the case, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Shawn Clark, Bureau Chief, and Michael Whitney, Deputy Bureau Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.

**Criminal complaints and indictments are accusations. A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.