NEW YORK CITY (CNN) — A suspect in a weekend hit-and-run crash that killed a Brooklyn couple and their unborn child pleaded not guilty to criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident, his lawyer said.
Julio Acevedo, 44, faces three counts of each.
He was previously charged with vehicular manslaughter, but the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office dropped that charge, according to defense attorney Scott Brettschneider.
“The overreaction everyone has taken in this case frightens him and he’s ready to deal with it,” Brettschneider said. “It was an accident. It’s a tragedy, but an accident.”
Acevedo was remanded at his arraignment Thursday night and the case will now be presented to a grand jury for indictment.
He was arrested Wednesday in nearby Bethlehem in connection with the Sunday wreck that killed Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21.
Raizy Glauber was pregnant, and the couple’s boy was delivered by cesarean, but died the next day, police said.
Acevedo ran away from the scene, police said, and it wasn’t immediately clear how investigators identified him as the suspect.
He was arrested after a friend helped facilitate his surrender in the crowded parking lot of a convenience store in Bethlehem, New York, according to Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.
During Thursday morning’s hearing, he said he is unemployed and living with his mother in Brooklyn, Judge Kelly Banach said.
He was sent back to New York earlier in the day, after a brief hearing in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
His next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.
