Unlicensed driver high on drugs rear-ends man on scooter stopped at light, fatally drags him down Brooklyn street: NYPD

Elizabeth Keogh, Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
·2 min read
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An unlicensed driver who rear-ended a man on a scooter and dragged him to his death on a Brooklyn admitted to cops she was high on drugs, authorities said Thursday.

“I did blow and PCP,” suspect Rachel Golden, 45, told cops after her arrest.

She is charged with vehicular manslaughter in the crash Wednesday afternoon in Clinton Hill in which she’s accused of driving a gray SUV into scooter rider Andrew Thomas.

Golden did not have a driver’s license, police say.

Her record includes arrests for robbery — including one case in which her 85-year-old victim broke his hip as she and an accomplice allegedly swiped a wallet containing $20 and the man’s senior discount MetroCard.

According to cops, Golden was driving a Toyota Venza north on Classon Ave. around 1:10 p.m. Wednesday when she rear-ended Thomas, 33, who was stopped at the light at Clifton Place.

Cops said Thomas was ejected from his Vespa scooter and landed on the sidewalk.

Golden drove on the sidewalk, and Thomas ended up pinned under Golden’s vehicle, court papers state. Golden continued driving, dragging Thomas underneath her car for several feet, cops said.

Medics rushed Thomas, who lived in Sunnyside, Queens, to New York Presbyterian-Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Golden, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, was arrested at the scene. She is charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving while impaired by drugs and driving with no license.

Golden was arraigned Thursday and held on $150,000 cash bond.

On Dec. 20, Golden was arrested for swiping a credit card from another shopper at the Albee Square Target, police said. She was charged with menacing, robbery, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property for the Sept. 14 incident and released without bail.

In 2018, police said Golden and Geneva Johnson, 27, shoved Vernon Forsythe, 85, to the ground at the corner of Fulton St. and Troy Ave. in Brownsville about 6:25 a.m., grabbed his wallet with the $20 and the MetroCard, and ran off.

Forsythe’s son said the crime put his father in a wheelchair and required him to use a walker.