Weak hit-and-run penalties provide 'incentive' to flee the scene, Long Island families and officials say

The 911 call came at 7:45 a.m. — nearly eight hours too late. By then, 42-year-old Jennifer Bianco was dead. A car struck her around midnight while she walked back home along North Ocean Avenue in Holtsville on May 21, 2023.

Investigators told her mother they were searching for the driver.

"They said her organs — her spleen, her liver — everything was mangled," said Barbara Alfo, 70.

The driver, Steven Syrop, a retired police officer and firefighter, fled the scene in his damaged pickup. He was arrested more than two months later, and pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal crash.

His punishment dealt a second devastating blow to Alfo: His sentence was 90 days in jail and 420 hours of community service.

"That’s nothing," Alfo said. "He can go on living after what he did. He didn’t show good behavior. He took a life, so he should be in jail for life."

The growing hit-and-run crisis

Long Island’s roads have long been perilous for pedestrians and cyclists. But a Newsday analysis of state crash data shows hit-and-run incidents — especially fatal ones — have emerged as a stubborn and deadly trend.

From 2019 to 2023, there were 244 serious or fatal hit-and-run crashes across Nassau and Suffolk counties. Most happened after dark. More than half involved pedestrians or cyclists.

And the numbers are not slowing. As of October, prosecutors have investigated 38 serious or fatal hit-and-run cases on the Island. Last year, there were 44.

In many of those cases, the victims are dead long before help arrives. And when the drivers are caught — thanks increasingly to cameras, license-plate readers and cellphone data — the penalties rarely match the devastation.

"The law needs to change," Alfo said, echoing other families Newsday spoke to whose loved ones were killed in hit-and-run crashes.

Law enforcement officials and some experts said while drivers who are high or drunk are likelier to flee the scene of a collision, they will often face less severe consequences even when they’re found. The maximum penalty for a deadly hit-and-run crash is 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison.

Hit-and-run crashes cannot result in more serious charges unless there is evidence the driver was intoxicated by alcohol, impaired by drugs or drove recklessly, law enforcement officials said. But when a driver flees, the investigation and evidence collection are often hampered, making more serious charges harder to tack on.

As of October, Suffolk and Nassau prosecutors solved the majority of the 38 fatal and serious hit-and-run cases on Long Island. 

Even once they’re solved, families of victims said they do not believe their loved ones got the justice they deserved. Some families, as well as officials, would like the class D felony hit-and-run charges elevated to match higher vehicular felony charges, such as that for B felony aggravated vehicular homicide with a maximum 8 1/3- to 25-year sentence or first-degree C felony vehicular manslaughter with a maximum 5- to 15-year sentence. They believe stiffer hit-and-run penalties will help deter such crimes.

Mike Bushwack, vehicular crimes bureau chief at the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, acknowledged hit-and-run crashes are some of the most challenging cases. He said in Nassau, 16 out of 19 cases from 2025 have been solved, and in six of the solved cases, there is "definitive proof" the driver was consuming drugs or alcohol before the collision.

"That’s a big problem, because even if you catch the driver, the maximum they can be charged with is a D felony. If they’re drunk or high ... they could be charged with a C felony or a B, so they have every incentive in the world to flee," he said.

Dimming hope for unsolved cases

For those cases that remain unsolved, hope for an arrest dims with each passing day.

Donna Twiford was married to  Robert Twiford, 61, for 29 years when he was fatally struck around 8 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2022 . He was standing outside his truck after pulling over on an off-ramp at Exit 60 on the Long Island Expressway. Twiford said police recovered a piece of the suspect’s car but were never able to trace it to anyone.

She has no empathy for fleeing drivers.

"Why are they leaving the scene? Are they high, drinking, illegal, have no license or insurance?" she asked.

"If I ever hit somebody, God forbid, I would be scared, but I wouldn’t take off. You can’t. You must have a black soul to be leaving somebody dead in the road,"  Twiford said.

"You killed somebody. Once you leave the scene, you committed a crime," she said.

Richard Simon, former regional administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration region that includes New York, said all drivers involved in a fatal hit-and-run should face a stiffer penalty. The punishment can serve as a deterrent, he said.

"The [laws] need to be strengthened and stiffened, because without that threat, the high-risk drivers aren’t going to change their behaviors," Simon said.

He said regardless of whether a driver was drunk or high, the end result is the same: a person was seriously injured or killed, and for that, they must be held responsible.

Brendan Ahern, former chief of the Suffolk County district attorney’s vehicular crime bureau, said he believes current hit-and-run laws create an incentive to drive off but cautioned any updates to the law need to recognize that not all drivers who flee are intoxicated or impaired. Some may simply panic, he said.

The law needs to account for both ends of the spectrum, but "ultimately ... fleeing the scene under those circumstances should expose you to a charge that’s on parity for what you would have been potentially exposed to if you stayed," Ahern said.

Beyond the legal repercussions for drivers, the same agony awaits survivors and families of victims: Why didn’t the driver stop when seconds could have meant the difference between life and death? Was the driver drunk or high? Were they speeding or reckless?

"For anyone that’s ever prosecuted a case that’s like that, that’s sat with families, you feel their pain," Ahern said. "You feel that they have been denied justice."

Hit-and-run laws through the years

Elected officials have long called for tougher penalties for hit-and-run crashes to bring the offense more in line with drunken-driving laws.

In 2005, New York increased penalties for leaving the scene of an accident without reporting it. Cases involving serious injury were raised to an E felony, with fines between $1,000 and $5,000. Fatal hit-and-runs became a D felony, carrying fines between $2,000 and $5,000. At the time, supporters of the legislation — including former State Sen. Carl Louis Marcellino, one of its sponsors — said the changes were meant to align the offense with vehicular assault and vehicular manslaughter.

But that parity was short-lived, according to Maureen McCormick, special assistant district attorney for legislative initiatives in Suffolk and an authority on traffic law prosecution. When the state later strengthened its drunken-driving statutes — including adding new provisions that elevated vehicular manslaughter in the first degree to a C felony — the hit-and-run penalties remained the same. The result, McCormick said, was an unintended "incentive" for drivers to flee.

Both Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney and Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly have called for increasing hit-and-run penalties.

"My vehicular crimes prosecutors are relentless in their pursuit of these cases — getting creative and digging deep to track down and hold accountable drivers who drink or use drugs and try to run from responsibility," Donnelly said in a statement to Newsday. "We owe it to the victims and their families to make sure these offenders don’t escape justice."

Tierney has also voiced support for stiffer penalties. 

Law is too lenient, families say

Several families of victims killed in hit-and-run crashes told Newsday they dragged themselves to court even for mundane proceedings. But within the courtroom walls, they did not find the justice they believed their loved ones deserved. 

For Joanna Alfo, 40, Jennifer Bianco’s sister, it feels like a raw deal.

During Syrop’s September 2024 sentencing, Suffolk Supreme Court Justice John Collins said Syrop’s prior service as a first responder was considered.

"There is no coming to terms with it, because they just gave him a slap on the wrist," Joanna Alfo, of Shirley, said.

"Anybody in their right mind would be angry, because he got off with nothing and they didn’t push hard enough. They didn’t listen to us and we didn’t have a say in the matter," she added. 

Ruth Anne Arnum, 60, said it’s unfathomable that her 23-year-old son was killed crossing a street on Dec. 30, 2022, while the hit-and-run driver received a 90-day sentence.

Corrilyn Meyer, a U.S. Army veteran and Long Island nurse, fled the scene after striking Dean Arnum. Meyer, the second driver to hit Arnum, was arrested six days later. The first motorist stayed at the scene. During Meyer’s April 2024 sentencing, Collins, the judge, said it would have been difficult to prove at trial which vehicle caused Arnum’s death.

"For me, it’s definitely unresolved. I can’t let this go," Arnum said in a recent interview at her Middle Island home, where pictures of her son hang in every room. "What rehabilitation did she get? This was heinous. She killed somebody who will never come home to his family."

Meyer did not return calls seeking comment, nor did the attorney who represented her.

Arnum was expecting her son home after he ended his shift at an Apple Honda dealership on Old Country Road in Riverhead, but he never made it to his car.

She teared up reading a heartfelt note he had penned for Christmas.

"He was so thankful for every little thing,"  Arnum said. "He could not stop thanking you."

Terry Puzio, 60, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, said every morning she wakes up to face the cold reality that her son Nicholas is gone. Nicholas Puzio, 25, was crossing Medford Avenue in Patchogue on March 12, 2023, when he was struck by two hit-and-run drivers.

Elian Jurado Zavala, now 21, was arrested several months later and sentenced to 6 months in jail. Jesus Matute, now 74, was charged more than a year later and was sentenced to 60 days in jail and 460 hours of community service, according to a Suffolk County courts public information officer. Both received 5 years probation. 

Jurado Zavala’s father, Jose Jurado, of Glen Cove, said his son is sorry, stressing it was an accident. He said his son was released after four months in jail because of good conduct and is now working.

Matute did not return messages seeking comment.

Terry Puzio said no sentence could compensate for her son’s death, but she said the punishments were too light.

"None of it makes any sense. You get 90 days and you walk free. You’ll go on with the rest of your life and that’s it. The rest of us are left to deal with it every day," Puzio said. "It just desensitizes the public to really what the major problem is, because I feel like on Long Island, it’s happening too much and people are just disregarding human life."

Nicholas Puzio worked at Bay Fuel Oil Company in Holtsville, where his mother said he was looking forward to getting a promotion and a raise.

"All that hope is gone," she said. "People ask, ‘Does it get easier?’ No, it gets harder, because we miss them more and they’re not in our family photos anymore."

State Sen. Dean Murray (R-East Patchogue) has introduced legislation in honor of Nicholas Puzio called Nick’s Law, to elevate fatal hit-and-run charges to a B felony with a fine of $30,000.

Puzio and Arnum both support the law.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving believes fleeing the scene of a fatal crash should result in more severe consequences and supports Nick’s Law.

"It’s terribly sad," said Paige Carbone, New York regional executive director of MADD. She said families often feel: "Is that what my child’s life is worth to you?"

The role of evolving technology

According to information provided by both district attorneys’ offices, 49 of the 182 fatal and serious hit-and-run cases since 2022 remain unsolved.

Evolving technology — such as license-plate-reading cameras, red-light cameras, dashcams, doorbell cameras and other surveillance cameras — are assisting investigators piecing together crimes. Cellphones can pinpoint locations as well, experts said.

Adam Scott Wandt, associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said new technology is making it easier to crack investigations.

"Police are getting fantastic with accessing this footage, and they’re getting fantastic using footage in the solving of crimes," said Wandt, an attorney who consults on digital investigations.

"There are limits to what we’re able to identify and look at, but there’s so much digital evidence out there these days that with the right amount of manpower, almost all crimes could be solved," he said.

Bushwack, from the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, credits two pieces of technology for helping to solve more cases: surveillance cameras on houses and property and traffic cameras.

"Without question, it’s really a three-step process. The first thing you got to try to figure out is what car was involved. ... Then you have to check off the next box and try to determine who was driving that car," he said. "And then even if you get there, then you still have to overcome the legal requirement of proving that driver knew or had reason to know that they struck someone and that they were injured."

Other solutions

Stiffer penalties are not embraced by all advocates and industry experts who believe more punitive measures will not reduce the number of hit-and-run cases. They would like the focus to be on tackling the underlying issue of intoxicated driving, as well as road infrastructure and enhanced vehicle technology.

Joseph Young, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said prevention is key. He said most new vehicles are equipped with automatic emergency braking, which can detect and stop for pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles. Although it’s not effective at night, it’s linked to about a 25% decline in crash risk for all collisions, compared with vehicles without the technology, according to Young.

"That’s an excellent technology that’s really out there and helping everybody," he said. "We’ve seen that those systems reduce front-to-rear crashes with other vehicles. We’re seeing that they reduce strikes of motorcycles as well as bicyclists."

Young said the average car is 12 years old, so it takes time for these technologies to become standard on our roads.

Amy Cohen, founder and president of Families for Safe Streets, said her organization is focused on a bill called "Stop Super Speeders," which is focused on technology in vehicles.

"By requiring habitual speeders to install intelligent speed assistance technology and slow down, we can prevent reckless driving, reduce hit-and-runs, and save lives," Cohen said in a statement.