Charles Polevich on the Nassau County Courthouse for sentencing on Wednesday in Mineola, N.Y. Polevich, the motive force in a hit-and-run crash that killed the daddy of rapper Nicki Minaj final yr has been sentenced to a yr in jail.

Howard Schnapp/AP

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Howard Schnapp/AP

Charles Polevich on the Nassau County Courthouse for sentencing on Wednesday in Mineola, N.Y. Polevich, the motive force in a hit-and-run crash that killed the daddy of rapper Nicki Minaj final yr has been sentenced to a yr in jail.

Howard Schnapp/AP

MINEOLA, N.Y. — The driving force in a hit-and-run crash that killed the daddy of rapper Nicki Minaj final yr was sentenced Wednesday to a yr in jail, in line with a promise the decide made when the person pleaded responsible in Could.

Charles Polevich, who pleaded responsible to leaving the scene and tampering with proof within the crash on New York’s Lengthy Island that killed Robert Maraj, was additionally ordered to pay a $5,000 fantastic and had his driver’s license suspended for six months.

Polevich’s lawyer, Marc Gann, urged his consumer might have had a medical difficulty on the time of the crash and that he wasn’t absolutely conscious of what had occurred when he fled.

Polevich, 72, stated in courtroom that he is “been heartsick since realizing the extent of the tragedy” and that there was “no excuse” for his habits.

Maraj’s widow, Carol Maraj, stated in courtroom that Polevich had left her husband “like a canine on the road” and that sparing him an extended jail sentence was a “slap within the face for the household,” Newsday reported.

Polevich struck Maraj, 64, whereas Maraj was strolling alongside Roslyn Street in Mineola in February 2021. Polevich stopped briefly to ask Maraj if he was OK, however did not name for assist, prosecutors stated.

As an alternative, Polevich went dwelling, parked the automobile — a white, 1992 Volvo station wagon — in his storage and coated it with a tarp, prosecutors stated. Maraj was taken to a hospital and pronounced useless the subsequent day.

Prosecutors sought a sentence of 1 to a few years behind bars, however Nassau County Choose Howard Sturim stated in Could, when Polevich pleaded responsible, that he would get “no multiple yr in jail.”

Brendan Brosh, a spokesperson for the Nassau County district lawyer’s workplace, stated that “given the severity of the defendant’s conduct,” prosecutors felt a stiffer sentence was warranted.

“We proceed to specific our condolences to the household of Robert Maraj,” Brosh stated.

Gann requested for a 90-day jail sentence, arguing that different elements exterior of Polevich’s management have been partially responsible for the crash, together with street development, avenue lights that weren’t working and Maraj’s bodily situation.

Maraj’s widow, Carol Maraj, is suing Polevich over the crash.

Polevich, who had been splitting time between Lengthy Island and Guam, the place he runs a drilling and water purification enterprise, surrendered to police a couple of days after the crash.

Detectives stated they used items of surveillance video to trace the Volvo concerned within the crash to Polevich’s Mineola dwelling.

Nicki Minaj, the platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated rapper of “Anaconda,” “Tremendous Bass” and different hits, was born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad and was raised in Queens.

In a put up on her web site, Minaj, 39, known as her father’s dying “essentially the most devastating lack of my life.”