1 1/3 To 4 Years For Long Island Woman Who Mowed Down Teen In Parking Lot: DA

RIVERSIDE, NY — A Shirley woman was sentenced to one and a third to four years in prison for using her car to strike a 15-year-old boy with a car several times and then bolting from the scene, Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said Friday.

Jennifer Nelson, 35, was found guilty of leaving the scene of an incident without reporting a serious injury in September.

“This is a horrible turn of events that no child should ever have to endure at the hands of an adult,” Tierney said. “Witnesses described how this defendant left a 15-year-old boy crawling away from her vehicle as she smirked and left the scene without remorse. Thoughtless and criminally dangerousness will not be tolerated in Suffolk County.”

On Oct. 7, 2022, Nelson mowed down the teenager with her 2020 Honda Passport after an argument with him and others at a parking lot of a bagel store, prosecutors said, adding that her vehicle struck the boy who then fell to the ground, and she then drove over him, reversed her car, drove over him again and then left.

In an attempt to evade officers, Nelson traded in her vehicle for a newer model, prosecutors said.

The boy suffered serious physical injuries, including multiple fractures to his pelvis, six
fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and numerous bruises and abrasions, according to prosecutors.

In a statement, her defense attorney, Katherine Fernandez of Uniondale, said, "Unfortunately we have a situation where my client , Jennifer Nelson, is being punished for exercising her constitutional right to a trial."

Fernandez described her as "a mother of a minor child" who did what any mother would do that day by "immediately "coming to her son's defense "after months of bullying complaints went unanswered."

"The assistant district attorneys in this case proceeded on a theory of intent," Fernandez said. "To be clear, my client never intended to hurt or kill anyone that day. She was a mother responding to defend her son and gather information."

Nelson has no prior criminal convictions and is "an upstanding employee" with National Grid, Fernandez said, adding, "The department of probation acknowledged they had no basis to believe she would violate probation or its terms, and that is the way she should have paid her debt to society."

"Instead, we have a situation where she is now being sentenced to the maximum incarceration on an E non-violent felony as a first time offender," Fernandez said. "And her minor son who was the real victim in this case is left without a mother."