A Queens man has been indicted on homicide charges for allegedly smashing his speeding car into another vehicle on the Cross Island Parkway last summer, killing a 74-year-old woman, and then fleeing the scene.
Ganess Seudath, 34, pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident in the Aug. 22, 2001, death of Helen Jurgrau, a Long Island grandmother who was driving home after a trip to Manhattan with her family.
Seudath had been free on $20,000 bail since his arrest. Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert Hanophy raised the bail to $35,000 at the arraignment.
Prosecutors said the defendant was driving southbound on the parkway at 80 miles an hour, bumping several cars and running one off the road before slamming his Acura into Jurgrau’s family’s Ford Explorer near the Linden Boulevard exit.
Jurgrau was thrown from the SUV, which overturned and pinned her beneath it. She was declared dead at the scene.
Seudath allegedly abandoned his car on an embankment and fled. He was trying to hitch a ride in a van when a witness stopped him and alerted police, prosecutors said.