A Southampton man pleaded guilty Wednesday to leaving the scene of a 2024 Hampton Bays crash that killed a 67-year-old pedestrian, Suffolk County prosecutors said.
Benjamin Sheen-Waltzer, 34, pleaded guilty Sept. 16 to leaving the scene of an incident without reporting, a Class D felony, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney.
Prosecutors said Sheen-Waltzer was driving a 2024 GMC pickup truck on Springville Road just south of Neptune Avenue at about 5 p.m. on March 6, 2024, when he struck Angel Asitimbay, 67, of Hampton Bays, from behind.
Asitimbay had been walking along the residential roadway while pushing a shopping cart filled with glass bottles and cans, prosecutors said. The impact threw him onto the shoulder of the southbound lane and scattered bottles and cans across the road.
Asitimbay was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving. Sheen-Waltzer fled the scene, prosecutors said.
Investigators found part of a GMC emblem among the debris from the crash, according to the district attorney’s office. Surveillance video from Hampton Watercraft & Marine on Springville Road showed Sheen-Waltzer’s vehicle with front-end damage and the “M” missing from its GMC emblem.
Southampton Town Police later traced the pickup to Sheen-Waltzer’s Southampton residence and found the entire front emblem missing, prosecutors said. Police later located the “G” and “C” portions of the emblem at Sheen-Waltzer’s workplace inside another vehicle allegedly registered to him.
GPS data from the pickup was also consistent with Sheen-Waltzer’s route before and after the fatal crash, according to prosecutors.
“This defendant cared more about evading responsibility for his criminal actions than rendering aid to the man he struck,” Tierney said. “Mr. Asitimbay was left to die on the side of a road with no possible life-saving aid rendered to him.”
Sheen-Waltzer entered the guilty plea before Acting Supreme Court Justice Anthony S. Senft Jr. He is due back in court Nov. 16.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney James McCormack of the Vehicular Crime Bureau. Detective Julian Davila of the Southampton Town Police Department conducted the investigation.
Photo: SCDA
