Inset: Yasmeen Shaaf (GoFundMe). Background: News footage of Nathalie Alejandro leaving the Onondaga County Justice Center with her parents (WSYR).
A New York mother faces criminal charges after prosecutors said she allowed her children to get into a vehicle being driven by her drunk girlfriend.
Nathalie Alejandro, 27, was released from custody after being charged with criminally negligent homicide in connection with the death of her daughter, 3-year-old Yasmeen Shaaf. According to court documents obtained by local ABC affiliate WSYR, Alejandro and her two children, Yasmeen and 7-year-old Mark Shaaf, got into a Kia Sorrento after midnight on July 31 with Alejandro’s girlfriend, 25-year-old Jazmine Vann, behind the wheel.
A criminal complaint for Vann’s charges obtained by local CBS affiliate WKOF said she was allegedly “intoxicated” and “admitted to consuming alcoholic beverages before the collision.”
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Police said Vann was speeding through a 30 mph area at 70 to 73 mph, ran several stop signs and red lights, and swerved to change lanes. Vann then allegedly jumped a curb, which caused her SUV to become “airborne for 34 feet” before it struck a tree. Everyone in the SUV was injured; Yasmeen was brought to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Police said neither child was restrained properly in the SUV for the drive home.
In the criminal complaint against Alejandro, police said she was “aware” that Vann had been drinking at a family gathering on the night of July 30 and “was visibly and substantially impaired by alcohol.” Alejandro allegedly “knowingly permitted her three-year-old child to be transported by an intoxicated operator” and “consciously failed to take reasonable measures to protect the child from known danger.”
In a GoFundMe post authored by Yasmeen’s father, Mark Shaaf, he wrote, “No parent should ever have to experience the unimaginable pain of losing a child because of someone else’s reckless decision.”
WSYR reported that Alejandro surrendered herself to the Syracuse Police Department on Wednesday and was arraigned at the Onondaga County Justice Center later the same day. Because she has been cooperating with authorities, she was granted pretrial release.
Vann faces 17 felony charges, including first- and second-degree vehicular manslaughter, assault, aggravated vehicular homicide, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, DWI, and reckless driving. After being hospitalized for injuries from the crash, Vann was booked into the Onondaga County Justice Center, where she is being held on $500,000 cash bail or $750,000 bail bond, according to Syracuse.com.
Alejandro’s and Vann’s next court dates were not immediately available.
The post Mom ‘consciously failed’ her 3-year-old when she let her drunk girlfriend drive SUV, sending it ‘airborne for 34 feet’ into a tree, killing the child: DA first appeared on Law & Crime.
