Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray and Newark Police Director Eugene Venable have announced that authorities have charged a man in connection with a fatal hit and run in Newark earlier this morning.
Authorities said at approximately 12:30 am, Newark police officers were dispatched to the intersection of McCarter Highway and Market Street on a report of a pedestrian struck. Arriving officers located an injured male, who had been struck by a vehicle, which then fled from the scene.
The victim of this collision, who has been identified as Khendrai Williams, 29, of East Orange, was rushed to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
At some point after the incident, troopers from the NJ State Police located the suspect vehicle on a street near the Passaic River in Newark. An investigation by detectives from the Prosecutor's Major Crimes Task Force, which includes detectives from the Newark Police Department, led detectives to charge a Newark resident in connection with the fatal crash, according to Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas S. Fennelly of the Prosecutor's Homicide Unit.
Andy Soto, age 27 of Newark, has been charged with vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, failure to render aid to an injured victim, according to Fennelly. Bail has been set at $100,000 by the Honorable Ned Rosenberg, J.S.C. Soto will be remanded to the Essex County Correctional Facility pending arraignment.
The investigation is ongoing, according to Fennelly and anyone with information is asked to contact Task Force detectives at (877) 847-7432 or (973) 621-4586.
THE CHARGES AGAINST THIS DEFENDANT ARE MERELY ALLEGATIONS. HE IS PRESUMED INNOCENT AT THIS TIME.