Police have arrested and charged the driver who jumped a curb and slammed the car into pedestrians and a Forever 21 store near Herald Square last night. Police say that 34-year-old Brooklyn resident Stella Mednik was driving drunk with a suspended license when she hit five pedestrians just before 10 p.m. last night. She has been charged with drunk driving, criminal possession of a controlled substance, four counts of serious injury, leaving the accident scene and refusal to take a breath test.
According to the FDNY, five pedestrians including a 14-year-old girl, as well as Mednik and her 45-year-old male passenger, were taken to the Bellevue Hospital after Mednik allegedly crashed the car on West 34th Street near 6th Avenue. The Post reports that she blew a .185 on the Breathalyzer.
Mednik, a 2002 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, had been a practicing immigration lawyer up until three years ago—her law license was suspended in 2011 after she was accused of misplacing funds. According to an online profile, she also "arraigned people in various Criminal Courts and participated on of counsel basis as well as lead trials in areas of DWI, criminal trespassing, and possession of illegal substance cases."
In her LinkedIn summary, she wrote:
My aim in life is to help people get out of situations that feel that they have no way out. I take pride in working with immigrants of all counties as I am in the legal consulting business. I had to travel that difficult route as a child, and if I could lighten the strain of the immigration process for every immigration family I would... Having said, that I maybe a sarcastic bitch on this site but i Love people and get them results (ask Ken Larson on this site :)
All of the people injured in the crash are expected to survive.
