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Rego Park man pays price for Elmhurst accident that took two lives

BY BROOKE SMITH

A Rego Park motorist was sentenced this week to serve up to nine years in prison for his role in a vehicle crash that killed two male pedestrians on Queens Boulevard in 2013.

Leonid Redko, 24 of 63rd Drive pleaded guilty on Oct. 28 to second-degree manslaughter before Queens Supreme Court Justice Gregory L. Lasak, who handed down a sentence of between three and nine years behind bars.

According to prosecutors, on the morning of Nov. 11, 2013, Redko was driving a 2014 yellow Chevrolet Camaro westbound along the Queens Boulevard service road near Broadway at over 100 mph when he lost control and hit a phone kiosk and a lamppost.

The vehicle then rotated and jumped the curb, fatally striking Man Chit Cheng, 59, and Wang Mu Lin, 41, both of whom were on their way to work.

“This was an absolutely senseless tragedy with deadly consequences that could have easily been avoided,” Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a statement Wednesday. “Today’s sentence is a fitting punishment and a reminder that driving is a privilege, not a right, and extreme caution should and must be exercised at all times in order to prevent lives from being destroyed.”