Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz today announced that Nicholas Thompson, 35, has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide and other charges for the Saturday night deadly car crash that killed a female passenger on Rockaway Blvd. in Jamaica, Queens.

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said, “As a result of this defendant’s alleged criminal behavior, a woman’s life has been tragically cut short. From the moment the defendant allegedly got behind the wheel of the car, intoxicated and with a revoked license, he was breaking the law and endangering the lives of everyone on the road. He will be held accountable for his alleged actions to the fullest extent of the law.”

Thompson, of Redfern Avenue, Far Rockaway, Queens is presently being held pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on a complaint charging him with aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter in the first degree, manslaughter in the second degree, vehicular manslaughter in the second degree, driving while intoxicated with two prior convictions within ten years, criminally negligent homicide, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the first and third degree, reckless driving, speed restrictions and driving by unlicensed operator. If convicted, the defendant faces up to 25 years in prison.

District Attorney Katz said that, according to the charges, at approximately 6:40 p.m,, the defendant was illegally operating a 2015 gray BMW traveling eastbound on Rockaway Boulevard at a high rate of speed. NYPD officers were also driving eastbound in an unmarked police vehicle when the defendant nearly struck their vehicle, causing the officers to swerve out the way. After passing the police officers’ vehicle, the defendant allegedly veered off the road and crashed into a metal fence and trees. The officers approached the crashed vehicle and observed the defendant exiting the vehicle. After a search warrant was issued by the court and executed by the police, the vehicle’s crash data recorder indicated that the defendant was traveling at 97 mph five seconds prior to impact.

DA Katz said police responding to the scene observed a female, Jolenna Favor, 32, of Far Rockaway, Queens, sitting in the front passenger seat with severe head and body trauma. She was pronounced dead at the scene by an EMT officer.

Continuing, the defendant allegedly had bloodshot and watery eyes and police detected a heavy odor of alcohol on his breath. He refused to submit to a Breathalyzer test, according to the criminal charges. Furthermore, records obtained from the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services indicate that the defendant was previously convicted of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs in Nassau County on September 26, 2011 and in Chester County, Pennsylvania on March 9, 2015 and that his license was revoked on November 10, 2011 for a driving while intoxicated conviction.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph Grasso, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Brad A. Leventhal, Bureau Chief, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief Peter J. McCormack III, and Deputy Bureau Chiefs John W. Kosinski, Chief of the District Attorney’s Vehicular Homicide Unit, and Kenneth Appelbaum, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.