Driver sentenced for fatal Crown Heights red-light crash
Elijah Lucaine ran a red light at high speed before hitting David Ellis at Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street, prosecutors said; city records list one motorist killed in the March 13, 2023 crash.
What We Know
Prosecutors said Elijah Lucaine sped through red lights before hitting an Acura driven by David Ellis at Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street in Crown Heights. City crash data records one motorist killed and one injured in the March 13, 2023 collision, with traffic-control disregard listed as a contributing factor. Later sentencing coverage said Lucaine pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and received a three-to-nine-year prison term. The sources do not fully agree on timing: the city record and several police-sourced stories place the crash around 6:34 p.m., while a later district-attorney account reported a 4:45 p.m. crash.
Prosecutors described a high-speed red-light crash
City records place the crash at Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street in Brooklyn on March 13, 2023, and list one motorist killed and one motorist injured. Prosecutors said Elijah Lucaine was driving a 2015 white Infiniti Q50 when he ran a red light at 70 mph in a 25 mph zone and hit a black Acura driven by 56-year-old David Ellis.
Nostrand Avenue has seen thousands of recent crashes
The crash happened at Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street in Crown Heights. CrashCountNYC location context for Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn records 2,399 crashes, 1,522 injuries, 74 serious injuries and 3 deaths since 2022 through June 1, 2026.
The public accounts disagree on the time
The city crash record lists the crash time as 6:34 p.m. Brooklyn Paper’s June 2023 account said police tried to stop Lucaine at 6:34 p.m., and the Daily News described the attempted stop at about 6:30 p.m. A 2024 Brooklyn Paper sentencing story, citing the district attorney’s office, reported that police observed Lucaine at about 4:35 p.m. and that he reached Crown Street and Nostrand Avenue at 4:45 p.m.
David Ellis died after being taken to Kings County Hospital
Sentencing coverage said first responders had to cut off the Acura’s door after Ellis was trapped, and that paramedics took him to Kings County Hospital with a leg fracture, rib fractures and a lung contusion. That account said he died five days later from blunt force trauma; earlier police-sourced stories described a medical episode during treatment and gave shorter timelines.
The collision involved two occupied vehicles and parked vehicles
The official record lists a southbound 2020 Acura SUV and a westbound 2015 Infiniti sedan, each with one occupant. Authorities said the impact redirected the Infiniti and Acura into an unattended parked 2008 BMW X5, which was then pushed into an unattended parked 2011 Mercedes-Benz van.
Traffic signals and speed were central to the case
The city crash record lists traffic-control disregard as a contributing factor, and the vehicle record for the Infiniti also lists unsafe speed. Prosecutors said Lucaine ran multiple red lights, swerved in and out of oncoming traffic and ran the red light at Crown Street and Nostrand Avenue before the impact.
Lucaine received a prison sentence for manslaughter
Brooklyn Paper reported that Lucaine pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter on May 15, 2024, and was sentenced on July 2, 2024, to three to nine years in prison. District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said, “This defendant’s reckless decision to speed and disobey traffic lights cost an innocent man his life and endangered many others.”