BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A Brownsville man who sped through a red light and fatally struck a woman on a motorized scooter in Bedford-Stuyvesant has been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Key Points:
- Mike Josie, 26, was sentenced to 4–12 years in prison for a 2022 fatal hit-and-run in Brooklyn.
- Josie struck 43-year-old Bernadine Lewis while speeding through a red light, then fled the scene.
- Surveillance footage helped identify the driver, who never reported the crash to police.
Mike Josie, 26, received an indeterminate sentence of four to 12 years behind bars after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter in the 2022 hit-and-run crash that killed 43-year-old Bernadine Lewis, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
“This defendant was speeding and ran a red light, causing a tragic crash that took a woman’s life,” Gonzalez said in a statement.
The fatal collision occurred on June 24, 2022, just after 2 a.m., when Josie was driving a Hyundai Elantra westbound on Lexington Avenue. According to prosecutors, he was traveling more than 45 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone when he ran a red light at Throop Avenue and struck Lewis, who was riding a motorized scooter through the intersection.
The impact threw Lewis to the ground. She was rushed to Kings County Hospital but later died of her injuries.
Surveillance footage showed Josie fleeing the scene without stopping or calling authorities. He did not report the crash to police, investigators said.
Josie entered his guilty plea on February 24 before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Christopher Robles, who imposed the sentence Tuesday.