Acevedo
More serious charges against Julio Acevedo, including criminally negligent homicide, were expected to be filed later. Reuters

Suspected hit-and-run driver Julio Acevedo surrendered to the New York Police Department and federal authorities in Pennsylvania Wednesday, four days after the tragic crash that killed a Brooklyn couple and their newborn son.

Police believe Acevedo, 44, was behind the wheel of the BMW that was speeding at 60 miles per hour when it crashed into the taxi that expectant couple Raziel and Nachman Glauber was riding in Sunday morning in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Glaubers, both 21, died at the scene. The couple’s baby, delivered two months premature following the crash, survived the accident but died a day later.

The incident infuriated Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community, who demanded that Acevedo be charged with murder instead of manslaughter.

“We are going to ask that the prosecutor charges him with a triple homicide,” community leader Isaac Abraham told the New York Daily News. “Nothing less than murder.”

Abraham said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hines told him that Acevedo would be charged with manslaughter, according to the paper.

Rabbi Moshe Silberstein, uncle of Raziel Glauber, said her family welcomed the news that Acevedo was arrested but questioned why he was on the street. Silberstein pointed to Acevedo’s rap sheet, which spans 27 years and includes manslaughter and DWI.

“They’re relieved in a way, but they can’t be relieved, because losing a child -- losing three children -- is a thing that can be healed only by God,” Silberstein told the Post. “We’re happy that this guy was caught. If he was locked up last time while he was driving while intoxicated, after he was sitting in jail for manslaughter, these three people would have still lived.”

Acevedo gave himself up Wednesday night in Bethlehem, Pa., to NYPD officers and U.S. marshals in a surrender arranged between authorities and a friend of the hit-and-run suspect, the New York Post reported.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne described Acevedo’s demeanor as “calm."

“He knew this moment was coming because we arranged it in advance,” Browne told the Post.

Acevedo did not talk to police after his arrest, but told the media in a phone call arranged by a friend that he didn’t realize the Glaubers died until he saw the news on television.