The driver who struck and killed two children in Park Slope in March returned to Supreme Court on Wednesday for a hearing she later walked out of as a free woman after making bail last month following a five-month stint on Rikers Island.
Motorist Dorothy Bruns feels horribly about her deadly collision with 4-year-old Abigail Blumenstein and 1-year-old Joshua Lew — which also injured three others including Blumenstein’s then-pregnant mother, actress Ruthie Ann Miles, who later lost her unborn baby due to complications from her injuries — her lawyer David Jacobs said after the hearing, but she refused to speak with this reporter herself while leaving the Jay Street courthouse, running into a nearby parking garage to avoid answering questions.
The Staten Islander faces charges that include a top count of reckless manslaughter for driving her car through a red light into the victims crossing Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street, after prosecutors’ investigation found that her doctor forbade her from getting behind the wheel due to her history of seizures, one of which she likely suffered at the time of the crash.
Bruns, however, plead not guilty at a May arraignment, and continues to maintain her innocence, with Jacobs arguing his client’s doctor cleared her to drive before the day of the deadly incident in a note he wrote saying that she could resume her job transporting large phones for the deaf — which the lawyer said the physician knew required her to drive — after seizures struck her in January.
The defendant, who shed the back and leg braces she wore to earlier hearings at her latest court appearance, is expected to return for another pre-trial hearing on Nov. 20.
