NY woman who fatally ran over mom who was mourning her slain daughter at memorial pleads guilty
The Long Island woman who fatally ran over a mom mourning the slaying of her daughter by MS-13 gang members accepted a plea deal Friday — seven months after a judge declared a second mistrial in the drawn-out case.
Ann Marie Drago, 63, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the 2018 death of 50-year-old Evelyn Rodriguez at a Brentwood memorial for her murdered teen daughter, Kayla Cuevas.
Drago is expected to receive a sentence of five years of probation, but prosecutors will be asking that she spend one to three years in prison.
“Evelyn Rodriguez was still mourning the loss of her daughter when this defendant dismantled her daughter’s memorial, and then struck the victim with her vehicle, ultimately causing her death,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement.
The plea agreement comes after prosecutors had to hurdle several mistrials, including after Drago was convicted in March 2020 and sentenced to nine months in jail — only for the case to be tossed by an appeals court, which cited prosecutorial misconduct during the jury trial.
Suffolk County prosecutors decided to retry the case last year — but that too ended in a mistrial after jurors were deadlocked on whether to convict Drago on the top count of negligent homicide.
Prosecutors say Drago ran over Rodriguez, a leading voice against gang violence, on Sept. 14, 2018 in front of the memorial outside Drago’s mother’s home in Brentwood.
The incident took place just hours before a planned vigil marking the second anniversary of Rodriguez’s daughter’s murder.
Drago claimed that she had felt threatened by Rodriguez and her partner Freddy Cuevas after the pair confronted Drago at her car when she dismantled the memorial.
The Patchogue woman then stepped on the gas and hit Rodriguez, who suffered a skull fracture and was pronounced dead later at a hospital, prosecutors said.
Rodriguez became an anti-gang violence activist after Cuevas, 16, and another teenager, Nisa Mickens, 15, were fatally beaten with bats and hacked with machetes by members of MS-13.
MS-13 member Enrique Portillo admitted to the 2016 grisly murders of the Brentwood High School students last August, and is awaiting sentencing.
Drago is set to be sentenced on August 1.
Her attorney, Matthew Hereth, did not respond to request for comment.
