A young, drunk man with no driver’s license lost control of a speeding Mercedes SUV that swerved into oncoming traffic on Yonge Street, killing a father and causing significant injuries to his wife, young son, and the driver of another car, a judge has found .
The collision in Richmond Hill on Aug. 18, 2019, left a massive debris field, and the impact was so devastating that the transmission and engine of the Mercedes were flung up to 300 meters down the road, Superior Court Justice Joseph Di Luca said Tuesday , reading his decision in Newmarket court. The vehicle was traveling up to 170 km/h at the point of impact, and witnesses reported seeing it zigzagging through traffic.
Despite the wreckage, the occupants of the Mercedes — Fareidon Hayatibahar and Farbod Riazi — both 19 at the time, managed to climb out of the vehicle with relatively minor injuries and subsequently point the finger at each other as being the person behind the wheel.
Earlier that day, both were drinking alcohol at a water park before leaving in the Mercedes owned by Riazi’s mother.
Riazi told court earlier this year that while he was initially driving — drunk and speeding — he later let Hayatibahar take over while he got into the passenger seat. Hayatibahar did not testify during the trial.
Di Luca called Riazi a “terrible witness” and said his evidence revealed “significant and obvious credibility and reliability concerns.”
The judge also noted Riazi had “significant motives to lie in his testimony. His mother’s Mercedes was destroyed in a horrific accident,” that resulted in loss of life and significant injuries to others. As well, he had also driven impaired that evening at extremely high rates of speed.
“There exists a real concern that he attempted to mislead the court on his involvement in the events that culminated in the tragedy.”
However, while it would be dangerous to rely solely on Riazi’s testimony to convict Hayatibahar, the judge said he was able to conclude that evidence of seat-belt injury marks on their skin “supports the singular inference that Mr. Hayatibahar was the driver and Mr. Riazi was the passenger.”
The judge was also persuaded of Hayatibahar’s guilt by the fact the Mercedes’ key was found in his pocket. Nor was he concerned that Riazi had accidentally confessed when he blurted out he was in the driver’s seat, calling it an “an honest slip” stemming from fatigue and not something that actually revealed the truth.
Di Luca convicted Hayatibahar of criminal negligence causing the death of Peyman Masoomi Fard, 44, and criminal negligence causing bodily harm to his wife and young son and the driver of another car. He was also convicted of impaired driving causing death and three counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
Crown attorney Greg Elder asked the judge to revoke Hayatibahar’s bail pending sentencing later this summer. He noted that Hayatibahar had only been in Canada for nine months at the time of the crash and is a potential flight risk back to his native Iran. While it’s unclear if Canada has an extradition treaty with Iran, it’s “not New York State,” the prosecutor said. Hayatibahar has been living under house arrest since the tragedy.
Di Luca declined to jail Hayatibahar — for now — after defense lawyer Boris Bytensky pointed out that even infamous drunk driver Marco Muzzo was released pending sentence after pleading guilty to wiping out four members of the Neville-Lake family in 2015. Father Edward Lake died by suicide earlier this week.
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