Hours after baby dies, police ID suspect in Brooklyn hit-and-run

NEW YORK -- A suspect in the hit-and-run deaths of a pregnant woman and her husband has been identified, hours after the death of the premature baby the woman was carrying, New York police said Monday.

Police said they were looking for Julio Acevedo, 44, believed to be the driver of a BMW that hit a livery cab carrying the couple, Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21. The BMW hit the taxi with the Glaubers at a Williamsburg intersection in Brooklyn in the early hours of Sunday.

The Glaubers were rushing to a hospital after Raizy Glauber complained that she wasn’t feeling well. Her husband had called the livery cab because the family didn’t have a car.

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The incident has roiled the Glaubers’ tight-knit Satmar Orthodox Jewish community located mainly in Williamsburg and in the suburban Rockland County area. Rewards have been offered, and community leaders have demanded that police charge the driver of the car with three homicides.

According to NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, Acevedo had a DWI arrest in February.

Police had said initially that there was a passenger in the BMW who fled along with the driver. On Monday, however, police said the driver was alone and was traveling at more than 60 mph.

The crash took place at Kent Avenue and Wilson Street. Police said the livery cab, a black 2008 Toyota Camry, was traveling west on Wilson Street when it was struck on the driver’s side by the 2010 BMW, which had been going north on Kent.

The livery car was at a stop sign, but it was unclear if it had stopped, police said. The investigation is continuing, they said.

Nathan Glauber was taken to Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Raizy Glauber was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, where she was pronounced dead on arrival, police said. Both died of blunt-force traumas from the accident.

The baby, a boy, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section and was initially listed in critical condition. Police said they believed Raizy was about seven months pregnant.

The baby died early Monday morning, police said. The cause of death was due to the premature birth caused by the injuries to the mother.

The Glaubers were married about a year ago and had begun a life together in Williamsburg, where Raizy Glauber grew up in a prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbinical family. Nathan Glauber was raised in the Rockland County community of Monsey, N.Y., and was part of a family that founded a line of clothing for Orthodox Jews. He was studying to be a rabbi.

Hours after they died, the Glaubers were mourned by 1,000 people at a funeral outside the Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar synagogue in Brooklyn. Afterward, the cars carrying the bodies left and headed to Monsey, where another service was planned.

“We in the community are demanding that the prosecutor charge the driver of the BMW that caused the death of this couple and infant,” Isaac Abraham, a spokesman for the community, said in a prepared statement. “This coward left the scene of the accident not even bothering to check on the people of the other car.”

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