A Long Island woman has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for fatally hitting an NYPD detective while driving under the influence in 2021, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Jessica Beauvais, 35, of Hempstead, had a blood alcohol content of nearly twice the legal limit two hours after she hit NYPD Detective Anastasios Tsakos in Queens on April 27, 2021, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a news release.
What You Need To Know
- Jessica Beauvais has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for fatally hitting NYPD Detective Anastasios Tsakos in Queens in April 2021
- Beauvais had a blood alcohol content of nearly twice the legal limit two hours after she hit Tsakos as he was redirecting traffic around a fatal crash on the Long Island Expressway in Fresh Meadows, prosecutors said
- She was convicted in October on charges of second-degree aggravated manslaughter, second-degree vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting
Beauvais received a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated manslaughter and a two-and-one-third to seven-year sentence for leaving the scene, to be served consecutively, followed by five years of post-release supervision, the release said.
“For everyone’s safety and wellbeing, including her own, the defendant should not have been behind the wheel of a car,” Katz said in a statement. “A police officer, doing his job protecting others, lost his life. I hope today’s sentence provides at least some closure for the detective’s loved ones.”
Prosecutors said Tsakos was redirecting traffic around a fatal crash on the Long Island Expressway in Fresh Meadows when Beauvais blew through traffic cones in a 2013 Volkswagen Passat and hit him.
The impact threw the NYPD detective into the air, severing his left leg at the knee, and his body landed around 170 feet away from the crash site on the highway’s shoulder, prosecutors said. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital soon after.
Beauvais fled the scene after she hit Tsakos, leading police on a pursuit for around three miles until she drove onto the sidewalk along the Horace Harding Expressway, reversed her car and struck a police cruiser, according to prosecutors.
In addition to having a blood alcohol content of .15, Beauvais admitted to police that she had smoked marijuana before she hit Tsakos, prosecutors said. She was also driving with a suspended license at the time of the incident.
Beauvais was convicted in October on charges of second-degree aggravated manslaughter, second-degree vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting.
