Teen Driver's Parents Sentenced After Crash Kills Passenger

In May of 2023, a 16-year-old Queens boy allegedly caused a high-speed crash in his parents' BMW that left his 14-year-old passenger dead. And on Monday, his parents were sentenced for their role in the tragedy. Sean Smith, 40, and Deo Ramnarine, 43, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and were sentenced to three years of probation and 26 weeks of parenting classes, the New York Times reports. Their son, whose name has not been released, faces up to 15 years in prison on the charges he faces, which include second-degree manslaughter. His passenger, Fortune Williams, was thrown from the BMW when it crashed into a UPS truck at more than 100mph on a street with a speed limit of 30mph, prosecutors say.

Smith and Ramnarine frequently allowed their son to use the high-performance car even though he had just a junior driver's license, meaning he was not allowed to drive unsupervised. School administrators had warned the parents that he should not be driving the car as early as November 2022, and in that same month, he was ticketed for driving without a license and for using a portable electronic device while driving, the New York Post reports. Months later, prosecutors say he caused the collision with the UPS truck that killed Fortune and left the UPS driver injured. The BMW spun out and collided with a tractor-trailer, leaving the car nearly split in half. The teen driver survived with minor injuries. (More teenage drivers stories.)