Woman, Mechanic Arraigned for Attempted Hit-and-Run Cover-Up

LongIsland.com

A woman from Long Island allegedly dragged a bicyclist behind her car for several hundred feet.

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Two people from Long Island are being charged in connection with a hit-and-run that took place over Labor Day weekend. Seven months after the incident occurred, police say that Nicole Grammerstorf is responsible for the crash and attempting to cover it up afterwards.

Grammerstorf, 30 from Melville, was allegedly driving in Huntington Station on Jericho Turnpike when she hit Luis Flores. Flores, an immigrant from Honduras, was killed and dragged for several hundred feet behind the car.

Police say that Grammerstorf then took her car to Mark Monserrat, a 37-year-old mechanic, to cover up the accident. Monserrat fixed up the car and sold it. According to officials, the two are acquaintances.

Grammerstorf had her five-month-old child in the car at the time of the accident.

Grammerstorf and Monserrat both pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys said that the two didn’t even know each other, and that Grammerstorf had sold the car before the accident. Monserrat’s lawyer said that he had bought the car off of someone else.

“He inspected the car when it was brought into his auto body shop. It showed no evidence whatsoever of any sort of accident involving the death of a human being,” said Monserrat’s attorney John Ebel, in a report from WCBS. “There was no hair, there was no blood, there was no tissue; there were dents in the front of the car.”

Grammerstorf is being charged with leaving the scene of an accident without reporting it, and she was released on a $50,000 bail. Monserrat is being charged with tampering with evidence, and was released on $30,000 bail. Grammerstorf will face a maximum seven year prison sentence, while Monserrat will face up to four years in prison.

Both are due back in court in May.

 

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