Man pleads guilty in car crash that killed Nicki Minaj’s father

NEW YORK — A hit-and-run driver pleaded responsible Friday in a suburban New York crash that killed the father of Nicki Minaj and was promised a 12 months or significantly less in jail, disappointing prosecutors and the hip hop star’s mom.

In state court docket in Very long Island’s Nassau County, businessman Charles Polevich admitted leaving the scene of the February 2021 incident that fatally injured Robert Maraj as he walked together a road in Mineola.

Polevich in the beginning obtained out of his automobile and seemed at the wounded person on the ground, but then drove off, didn’t phone 911, garaged his automobile and protected it with a tarp, authorities explained. Polevich pleaded guilty to tampering with proof by concealing the vehicle.

Maraj, 64, died at a clinic the up coming working day.

Decide Howard Sturim claimed Polevich would get “no more than a person yr in jail,” along with community services and a suspended license. The 71-calendar year-previous is owing to be sentenced Aug. 3.

The victim’s widow, Carol Maraj, instructed reporters she was “not happy” with the planned sentence. The widow, who is suing Polevich, stated observing him in court docket remaining her shaking at the memory of her partner fighting for his lifestyle in the hospital.

Prosecutors, who sought a one particular-to-a few-calendar year jail sentence, also took challenge with the prepared penalty.

“Given the severity of the defendant’s carry out, we disagree with the sentencing dedication from the court docket,” Nassau County District Attorney’s office environment spokesperson Brendan Brosh claimed in a assertion.

Polevich’s law firm, Marc Gann, identified as the strike-and-operate “completely out of character” for his shopper, who hails from Lengthy Island but has a drilling and water purification enterprise in Guam.

“He does feel tremendous empathy for Mr. Maraj’s relatives and great regret for any role he played in his dying,” Gann claimed by mobile phone following courtroom. He proposed that Polevich could possibly have had a healthcare issue that built him not “fully aware of what he was carrying out,” when noting that it wasn’t a legal justification.

Messages were being despatched to associates for Nicki Minaj, who termed her father’s demise “the most devastating decline of my daily life” in a write-up on her web-site very last yr.

The platinum-advertising, Grammy-nominated rapper — acknowledged for tracks including “Anaconda,” “Starships” and “Super Bass” — was born Onika Tanya Maraj.

In interviews decades back, she described a troubled connection with her father. But she later on reported he had improved.

Following his death, she wrote about wishing she could choose up the mobile phone and discuss to him.

“He was incredibly beloved & will be really skipped,” she wrote.