ICYMI: NYC Prosecutors Charge Man With Murder After Fatal Crash

MURRAY HILL, NY — The driver in a July drunk driving crash that left one person dead is being charged with murder, prosecutors announced this week.

Antonios Sikolas sped through eleven red lights with a blood-alcohol concentration of .14 percent on July 19 before he slammed into three different cars, injuring himself and two others and killing his passenger, prosecutors said. Sikolas is being prosecuted on murder and manslaughter charges, among other charges, in the wake of the July collision. Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance announced the charges this week. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

"Getting behind the wheel after drinking alcohol isn’t an accident; it’s a deliberate and dangerous choice, too often with deadly consequences," Vance said in a statement. "Here, the defendant is accused of acting with depraved indifference as he barreled up Third Avenue, flew past eleven red lights, and smacked into a tractor-trailer, causing a deadly three-car wreck."

Sikolas was driving north on Third Avenue on July 19 at about 2:30 a.m., according to police. With Ryota Funakoshi seated in the front passenger seat, Sikolas raced through Murray Hill before colliding with a tractor-trailer that was going east on 34th Street, authorities said. He hit the struck so forcefully that it was knocked into a taxicab on the opposite side of the street, where the cab's driver was sitting inside, prosecutors said. Sikolas, his friend Funakoshi, and the drivers of both the cab and the truck were rushed to the hospital. Funakoshi, 37, suffered severe head trauma and skull fractures, authorities said. He died from his injures on July 25.

Police initially charged Sikolas with vehicular assault before prosecutors upped the charges to include murder and manslaughter.

Patch was not immediately able to contact Sikolas' attorney.

Lead image credit: Spencer Platt / Staff / Getty Images News.