A grand jury returned a lengthy indictment this week, delivering a list of charges against the 40-year-old Queens man accused of fatally striking a 5-year-old boy and fleeing the scene before he was tracked down by police three weeks later.
Xavier Carchipulla, of Astoria, was arraigned before the Queens County grand jury where he was charged with criminally negligent homicide, among other charges. He's accused of operating the truck in the Sept. 1 crash that killed little Jonathan Martinez right by the street where he lived.
The boy and his family were trying to cross 100th Street in their East Elmhurst neighborhood around 5:30 p.m. that day when cops say a Dodge Ram pickup driver going north on McIntosh Street, where the boy resided, hit him as it turned.
Martinez suffered severe head trauma and was pronounced dead at a hospital. His parents were overwhelmed by grief.
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"I just wanted the driver to stop and not run my boy over. Just stop," father Richard Martinez said in Spanish at the time, adding he tried to grab all the children in the area and pull them back. He said he tried to grab all the kids and pull them back. But he couldn't get them all to safety.
"The driver kept on going and crushed my boy with both tires, and he started to bleed profusely," Richard Martinez said.
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Richard Martinez had been walking with Jonathan, a friend and the boy's two siblings at the time of the accident. They had just left Helen Marshall Playground.
Footage from a neighbor's security camera captured the horror. The video shows three figures — the dad walking hand-in-hand with his two young boys — crossing the street in the middle of the block.
The truck then makes a turn, appearing to hit and drag the 5-year-old boy for several feet. The video shows the father trying to flag the driver down, but police say the driver did not stop. Officers also said the driver didn't appear to be speeding or turning illegally at the time of the crash.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said Carchipulla faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
"To drive without a license is to place your own wishes over the needs of other people's safety, leading to heartbreaking results," Katz said in a statement. The Astoria man is accused of driving with a suspended license and without a registration for the truck.
Attorney information for Carchipull wasn't immediately available.
