Man Charged In Chinatown Crash That Killed Friend

CHINATOWN, NY — Prosecutors indicted a man on manslaughter charges on Thursday after a December car crash in Chinatown that left a teenager dead.

Authorities say Gerald Joseph was speeding and drunk on Christmas night before he crashed his car, killing his passenger 17-year-old Shareef Bellerand.

Prosecutors said on Thursday that Joseph was indicted on manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter charges.

Joseph, 22, was drunk while he drove his friend Shareef from Brooklyn to New Jersey at 1 a.m. on Dec. 26, authorities said. As Joseph was driving across the Manhattan Bridge, traveling 65 mph in a 35 mph zone, he lost control of the car and slammed into a fire hydrant near the corner of Bowery and Canal Street, prosecutors said Thursday.

The force of the collision sent the fire hydrant rocketing across four lanes of traffic and caused Joseph's car to flip and catch fire, police said.

Joseph and Shareef both had to be extracted from the mangled car when emergency responders arrived.

Shareef was pronounced dead at the hospital after the crash.

At 6 a.m., about five hours after the collision, Joseph had a blood alcohol level of 0.14, prosecutors said.

Patch was not immediately able to contact Joseph's attorney on Thursday afternoon.

"Drunk driving around the holidays claims the lives of far too many victims," Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance said in a statement. "There is simply no excuse for driving drunk, especially in a city like New York, where we have numerous public and private transit alternatives at our disposal."

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