Woman pled guilty to killing 3 in crash; now blaming medical episode in civil suit
Miriam Yarimi accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for the crash that killed 34-year-old Natasha Saada and her 5- and 8-year-old daughters.
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A woman who pleaded guilty to killing three people in a crash that killed a Brooklyn mother and her two children is now blaming a medical episode on the incident.
Miriam Yarimi accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for the crash that killed 34-year-old Natasha Saada and her 5- and 8-year-old daughters. It also injured her son Philip, leaving him in the hospital for months.
Yarimi previously pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.
She cried and apologized in court in November, saying she "accepts full responsibility for her actions."
Now, in a separate civil suit that the Saada family filed against her for damages, Yarimi says a medical episode is to blame for the crash.
An affidavit she filed reads, "After traveling on Ocean Parkway for approximately five seconds, I had a medical emergency which caused me to lose consciousness. It is my contention that but for the medical emergency that I experienced, this accident would not have happened.”
Hershel Kulefsky, the Saada family's lawyer for the civil suit, says he thinks it's an attempt to get out of paying damages.
“It’s disgusting. It's outrageous. It's all about her not wanting to, you know, she wants to keep her money in her pocket, not in their pocket," said Kulefsky.
News 12 previously reported that Yarimi was driving on a suspended license and three times the speed limit when she crashed. When she accepted the plea deal, she admitted in court that her reckless driving caused the crash.
“She didn't have the story until this motion was made. She never said it to the cops. She didn’t say to anyone. She didn't say in criminal court," said Kulefsky.
News 12 reached out to Yarimi's lawyer, but hasn't yet heard back. The civil suit is expected to be heard in court this week.
