Williamsburg – NYPD Speaks To Friend Of Suspect In Fatal Hit-Run

Williamsburg – The hunt for an ex-convict wanted in a hit-and-run crash that killed a pregnant woman and her husband was a game of cat and mouse on Wednesday, with police getting word that he wants to surrender even though he remains in hiding.

Investigators spoke to a friend of Julio Acevedo who told them he has an attorney and is willing to turn himself in to face charges in the crash on Sunday that killed the couple and ultimately their premature son, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters on Wednesday. But police have had no direct contact with Acevedo or a lawyer, he added.

“I don’t know if this is a game or what,” Kelly said. The commissioner added: “We’re actively looking for him. We’re not waiting for him to turn himself in.”

Kelly also knocked down a claim by Acevedo in a phone call to a newspaper that he was fleeing a gunman who was trying to shoot at him when his borrowed speeding BMW slammed into a hired car carrying the couple.

The car was carrying Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21. They died Sunday and their child died on Monday.

The suspect told the Daily News that he fled the scene because he was worried he’d be killed, and claimed he didn’t know the couple had died until he saw it in the news. But Kelly said there were no reports of shots fired in the area at the time of the wreck.

The tragedy unfold shortly after midnight Sunday, when Raizy Glauber, who was seven months pregnant, decided to go to the hospital because she wasn’t feeling well, her family said. They called a livery cab, a hired car that is arranged via telephone, not hailed off the street like a yellow cab.

The crash with the BMW reduced the cab to a crumpled heap, and Raizy Glauber was thrown from the wreck. The engine ended up in the back seat. The driver of the livery cab was knocked unconscious but was not seriously hurt.

The couple belonged to a close-knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, which is home to the largest community of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside Israel, more than 250,000. They were members of the Satmar Hasidic sect. Raizy Glauber grew up in a prominent rabbinical family. Her husband was studying at a rabbinical college; his family founded a line of clothing for Orthodox Jews.

The child was delivered by cesarean section after his parents were killed. The baby weighed only about 4 pounds when he was delivered, neighbors and friends said. He died of extreme prematurity, the city medical examiner’s office said.

The baby was buried Monday near his parents’ graves, according to a spokesman for the Hasidic Jewish community. About a thousand community members turned out for the young couple’s funeral a day earlier.

Acevedo, 44, was arrested last month on a charge of driving while under the influence, and the case is pending. He was stopped by police after they said he was driving erratically around 3 a.m. Feb. 17. He had a blood-alcohol level of .13, over the limit of .08, police said.

He served about a decade in prison in the 1990s for manslaughter after he was convicted of shooting Kelvin Martin, a Brooklyn criminal whose moniker “50 Cent” was the inspiration for rapper Curtis Jackson’s current stage name.

How Acevedo came to possess the BMW is under investigation. The registered owner was arrested Sunday on insurance fraud charges related to the vehicle, but the case was deferred.