Mar. 27, 2024 By Bill Parry
A New Jersey truck driver was arrested Tuesday and booked at the 108th Precinct in Long Island City in connection to a fatal collision that killed a Corona cyclist in Maspeth last month.
Yakup Mace, 46, of Lawton Avenue in Cliffside Park, is charged with reckless driving, tampering with evidence, filing a false report, and other crimes in the crash that killed 47-year-old Jorge Galicia of 43rd Avenue on the night of Thursday, Feb. 22.
The victim was riding between Frank Principe Park and Mt. Zion Cemetery just after 8 p.m. when he crashed into a box truck driven by Mace at the intersection of Maurice Avenue and 54th Avenue. Police from the 108th Precinct responded to a 911 call of a vehicle collision involving a bicyclist where they found Galicias lying on the roadway just north of the Long Island Expressway, with “sustained trauma throughout the body,” according to the NYPD.
EMS responded to the scene of the crash and rushed the victim to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short while later.
Further investigation by the NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad determined that Galicias slammed into the side door of a white Chevrolet box truck that was traveling southbound on Maurice Avenue.
Mace remained at the scene but was taken into custody more than a month later after investigators determined he made false statements. He was additionally charged with failure to yield, failure to use due care resulting in serious injury, unsafe movement of a stopped motor vehicle, and making an illegal U-turn, according to the NYPD.
