The motorist who fatally mowed down the Long Island mother of a teenage girl killed by MS-13 gang members was indicted Friday on three criminal charges.
AnnMarie Drago, 58, now faces three charges of criminally negligent homicide, petit larceny and criminal mischief in connection with the Sept. 14 death of 50-year-old Evelyn Rodriguez, according to the indictment.
Rodriguez, who became a national voice against gang violence after her daughter’s gang murder, was fatally struck by a car while preparing a candlelight vigil at a memorial for her 16-year-old child, Kayla Cuevas.
The deadly motor-vehicle incident happened in Brentwood two years to the day Rodriguez’s daughter’s body was found in a wooded area off the same block.
Locals previously told The Post that the driver had been trying for months to sell a vacant home adjacent to the memorial and apparently blamed mourners who visited the area for her inability to unload the property.
Drago pleaded not guilty Friday and was released without bail. Wearing sunglasses, she said nothing to reporters after her arraignment at Suffolk Court District Court.
Authorities have said Rodriguez and the woman driving a white 2016 Nissan Rogue got into a heated altercation over the memorial for Cuevas and her friend that had been erected in front of the house on the block.
Drago allegedly swiped some items from the memorial at one point and intentionally trashed another part of it. Pals of Rodriguez’s family claimed that the driver had popped balloons, stole photos of the dead teen and dismantled a table.
Drago surrendered to Long Island police Friday morning, said a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Rodriguez was a fierce advocate in the crusade to eradicate gangs. She was placed in the national spotlight in January when she attended President Trump’s State of the Union Address.
Cuevas and her best friend, Nisa Mickens, 15, were walking down a tree-lined street in Brentwood on Sept. 13, 2016, when they were savagely slain by MS-13 thugs armed with baseball bats and a machete.
Last year, six MS-13 members were charged in the murders of the teens.
Cuevas had been involved in “a series of disputes” with MS-13 gang members in the months before her murder, federal prosecutors have said.
The dispute escalated a week before her murder, when Cuevas and several friends got into an argument with MS-13 thugs at her school.
“After that incident, the MS-13 members vowed to seek revenge against Cuevas,” a federal complaint states.
Rodriguez previously filed a $110 million lawsuit against the Brentwood School District, arguing that officials ignored repeated complaints that members of the vicious gang were threatening her daughter.
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