Daniel Campbell gets 90 days in jail for killing NYU student
A hit-and-run driver was sentenced Thursday to just 90 days behind bars for mowing down and killing an entering freshman at NYU in the Hamptons — leaving his family livid at the light sentence.
Daniel Campbell, 20, pleaded guilty Aug. 5 to leaving the scene of the accident that killed Devesh Samtani, an 18-year-old from Hong Kong who was walking from a party in Amagansett in August 2021, WNBC reported.
The victim was killed shortly before he planned to enroll at New York University.
“He is going to come back and his life will be fine in a few months but for us our family is gone for life,” Samtani’s devastated mother, Mala Samtani, said in court after she asked Campbell why her son was left to die.
“He came here to study, not for you to take his life away,” she added, according to the Easthampton Star.
Before being led out of Suffolk Supreme Court in Riverside, Campbell addressed the family.
“I panicked and wish I had stayed with your son. Your son’s life will be with me forever,” he said tearfully, WNBC reported.
But the family was unmoved.
“He still did not admit about his speeding. I don’t believe he was driving at 25 miles an hour,” said the victim’s dad, Kishore Samtani.
Justice Richard Ambro called 90 days in the slammer a fair and reasonable sentence — insisting there was no evidence that Campbell was speeding, drunk or high.
“Ninety days is temporary. What we have isn’t going to be temporary,” Devesh’s brother Viren said.
The anguished dad added: “At least the 90 days will help him reconcile and think that what he did was wrong.”
The future NYU student had already written a children’s book about COVID-19 with plans to donate the proceeds before he was cut down, according to the news station.
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