The unlicensed teen driver accused of striking and killing a 4-year-old while fleeing police on the Upper West Side two years ago has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a deal that's expected to result in a sentence of 3 to 9 years in prison.
Franklin Reyes, 18, entered his plea Thursday after he was given another day to make his decision on the deal. Prosecutors had sought up to 11 to 15 years in prison.
The deal also covers guilty pleas for three additional charges he's facing, including dragging a police officer during a separate traffic stop.
Reyes' mother, Lilia Reyes, said her son "had no other choice" but to take the deal, admitting that if he'd gone to trial "he would have faced who knows how many years."
Still, she said, "it wasn't a fair offer."
The parents of the girl killed in the crash disagreed.
"Three to nine years is absolutely not enough for what he did," Ariel Russo's mother, Sophia Russo, said outside court Thursday. "His reckless actions killed my daughter, maimed my mother and shattered our lives."
Police said Reyes was unlicensed when he took his father's car for a joy ride on the morning of June 4, 2013. When they tried to pull him over, Reyes took off, lost control and jumped the curb, slamming into 4-year-old Ariel Russo and her grandmother. He was arrested and charged with manslaughter.
"I'm going to do whatever it takes so that he gets the maximum, the nine years," said Sophia Russo. "I'll go in front of his parole board every time he's up for a parole board meeting and let them know the devastation he's caused."
Ariel's father, Alan Russo, added, "He shouldn't be out on the streets."
Reyes was 17 when the crash occurred. But the judge said in January that Reyes could not be treated as a youthful offender because he'd been arrested twice on felony charges since the fatal crash, most recently in the September 2014 traffic stop, In July 2014, he was arrested on a petit larceny charge along with his father for allegedly burglarizing the apartment of a dead resident in Chelsea.
He's expected back in court March 25 in the petit larceny case, along with his co-defendant father.
