Azhar Jamil Said’s death in a hit-and-run last summer meant his Yonkers neighbors could no longer converse with him on his daily walks, his grandchildren couldn’t help him tend his garden and his regular seat in church would forever remain empty.
But most of all, it left a huge hole in his family and everlasting grief that the man who instilled in them “qualities of faith, generosity and quiet strength” was gone, his daughter said in Westchester County Court on Thursday at the sentencing of Joseph Delgado, who she said showed “carelessness, neglect and selfishness” when he drove off that morning.
“Our father did not deserve to be abandoned in the street by some adolescent coward,” Jennifer Samaan said, adding that Delgado’s “character and moral compass were so broken that you left a man to die.”
Delgado, 25, of Yonkers, apologized moments later, before state Supreme Court Justice James McCarty sent him to state prison for 1 1/3 to 4 years, the promised sentence when Delgado pleaded guilty in February to leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
The 78-year-old Said was crossing Executive Boulevard at Truman Avenue just after 9:35 am on June 23 when he was struck by an eastbound rented Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Delgado. Delgado stopped briefly but then drove off. At the time, his driver’s license had been suspended since 2020 because he failed to answer summonses in Eastchester.
Yonkers detectives used red-light camera video and license plate readers to identify the car and determined Delgado was the driver. They learned the car was returned to Avis that afternoon.
Police then used license plate readers to track down a car belonging to a friend of Delgado’s who had rented the Jeep for him. When that car was located in Elmsford, police surveilled a hotel there and took Delgado into custody when he checked out the next day.
Said had four children and eight grandchildren — with Samaan and her husband expecting the ninth. Said was born in Jordan and worked as an air-traffic controller in that country, according to his obituary. After immigrating to the United States, he worked as a tool-and-dye maker before retiring.
Samaan said the family still struggles with everyday things after her father’s death. Her mother has to be reminded not to make a second cup of tea each morning. Family members altered their regular commute to avoid the spot where he was killed.
She called Delgado an “unrepentant criminal” who didn’t deserve sympathy because he had shown her family none.
But Delgado insisted he was remorseful and would strive to be a better person.
“Sorry can’t explain what I feel,” Delgado told McCarty and Said’s family, adding later “I was scared and I made a reckless choice and I wish I could take it back.”
It was hardly the first time Delgado showed contrition for the accident. During his interrogation by police on June 24, according to court documents, he wrote no fewer than six letters, apologizing to Said’s family, to his own mother and father, to his brother and to his girlfriend, and asking a judge for leniency even though he had not yet been formally charged.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Joseph Delgado sentenced for Yonkers NY hit-and-run death of Azhar Said