A Brooklyn man was drunk when he mowed down and dragged another motorist in a fit of road rage, prosecutors said Saturday.
David Cruz, 55, was so intoxicated when he rammed his work van into Gavriel Mardakhay that he still scored .109% on a Breathalyzer test – more than five hours after the crime, authorities said.
Cruz was getting an early jump on the long Veterans Day weekend when he killed Mardakhay Thursday night, his boss said.
“He’s a veteran. So I gave him time off for Veteran’s Day Friday and Saturday,” said Vadim Tarnovsky, owner of Eagle Team NYC, a maintenance and electrical company where Cruz is a project manager. Tarnovsky didn’t know in which branch of the military Cruz served.
Mardakhay, 65, was shopping at Costco on Third Ave. near 37th St. in Sunset Park with his wife when he saw Cruz’s electrical van hit his vehicle in the parking lot and speed off about 9:15 p.m.
Mardakhay jumped into his car and caught up with Cruz on Third Ave. at 65th St. in Bay Ridge, boxing his vehicle in with the help of good Samaritan with a gray minivan, cops said.
As Mardakhay got out and approached him, Cruz drove into him and sped off, dragging the doomed man for two blocks before stopping.
The good Samaritan managed to grab Cruz and hold him down until police arrived, witnesses said. Firefighters from the nearby Engine 241 and Ladder 109 lifted the van to free Mardakhay, who later died at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
Prosecutors charged Cruz with murder, drunken driving and reckless driving at his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court Saturday.
Cruz’s van had a dashboard camera, but was not recording when Mardakhay was struck, Tarnovsky said.
Looking sullen under his wire-rim glasses, Cruz said nothing in court as his attorney Michael Farkas said his client was “wildly overcharged.”
“This was anything but an intentional murder or any kind of murder for that matter,” Farkas said. “There are witness statements at the scene of the arrest to the media stating that he appeared to not know what was happening, not know that he had hit anybody.”
Farkas also claimed Mardakhay was partly to blame.
“What we do know is that the victim chased down and confronted my client,” Farkas said. “It created a situation that my client reacted to. It is entirely likely (that) this was a horrible accident, and the driver was not aware of what was happening.”
Cruz is being held on $50,000 bail, which Farkas said his client was posting. A heartbroken woman, who wished not to be named but later identified herself as Cruz’s relative, was seen weeping outside the courthouse.
Farkas tried to remain positive about Cruz’s chances.
“I think at the end of the day, he really won’t be the horrifying, evil driver that people think he is,” the attorney said.
