A Queens man has been accused of helping a suspected drunken driver flee the scene of an alleged hit-and-run crash that killed three people in Bay Shore over the weekend.
Demetri Stewart pleaded not guilty Tuesday at Suffolk County court to charges of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, hindering prosecution and criminal facilitation.
Prosecutors said the 23-year-old Jamaica man drove his friend, Oniel Sharpe Jr., immediately after Sharpe allegedly rear-ended a Toyota while driving his mother’s BMW westbound on the Southern State Parkway near exit 41 for Bay Shore Road at 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
Three people in the vehicle that Sharpe allegedly hit—37-year-old Ancio Ostane and his two children, Andy, 8, and Sephora, 4—were trapped in the burning vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Their mother and Ancio’s wife, Lucnie Bouaz-Ostane, escaped and was taken to South Side Hospital in Bay Shore, where she was treated for minor injuries and released. The family was on their way home to St. Albans after leaving a family party in Central Islip, police said.
Sharpe, 24, of Springfield Gardens, was arrested four hours later at his mother’s Rockville Centre home. His bail was set at $250,000 cash after he pleaded not guilty Monday to driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Bail for Stewart was set at $100,000 cash.
