Today, Carmen Huertas was sentenced to four to 12 years for a drunk driving crash that killed an 11-year-old girl. The father of victim Leandra Rosado, whose death resulted in a new law that makes it a felony to drive while intoxicated with a passenger 15 years or younger in the car, told the judge, "My daughter is looking down at us right now... Don't let her death be in vain. I promised always to protect my daughter and I feel I failed her... Don't let us down."
In October of last year, Huertas was driving her daughter, Leandra, and a number of other girls to her home in the Bronx for a sleepover (they had just attended a party in Manhattan). While she was driving home erratically, Huertas asked the girls to raise their hands if they thought they were going to crash. At 96th Street on the West Side Highway, Huertas' Mercury Sable crashed into the median and overturned.
Huertas, who has been in jail since the incident, cried in court, asking for leniency so she could raise her three children, "I am not a monster. I am a loving mother who made a horrible decision that caused the death of a wonderful child. I know that I must be punished." The victim's father Lenny Rosado told the Post he was satisfied with the sentence.
