Weepy wigmaker Miriam Yarimi apologized for wiping out a Brooklyn mom and her two young children with her speeding luxury sedan, just before catching a break and receiving a three-to-nine-year sentence from a judge Wednesday.
The 33-year-old driver who prosecutors say was caught in a jail call saying, “Why should I apologize, I’m just as much of a victim as they are,” changed her tune before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun imposed her sentence.
“I want to begin by apologizing to the victims’ family,” the wig-making social media influencer said, breaking into tears. “There’s a lot of sorrow and pain and honest regret I feel in my heart for causing such a tragedy. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
Instagram / iitsanellie; Obtained by Daily News
Miriam Yarimi (left) was charged with manslaughter after she crashed her Audi, resulting in the death of a woman and two young children, Diana and Deborah Saada (right, with brother who was hospitalized). (Instagram / iitsanellie; Obtained by Daily News)
One of her lawyers, Steven Legon, used a tissue to dab her cheeks as she cried during the sentencing.
Chun offered Yarimi the deal last month, despite the objection of prosecutors, who were asking for the maximum sentence of five to 15 years for the manslaughter charges. The deal means she will be eligible for parole after three years behind bars.
Yarimi was zipping north on Ocean Parkway in Midwood, her pedal to the floor and the odometer at 68 mph, when she blasted through a red light and crashed her Audi A3 into a Toyota Camry Uber at Quentin Road on March 29.
She then plowed into Natasha Saada, 35, and her three children, Diana, 8, Deborah, 5, and Philip, 4, who were crossing Ocean Parkway in the crosswalk.
The impact killed Saada and her daughters and left her son critically hurt.
In explaining his sentence, Chun said that throughout his career he has generally not imposed the maximum sentence when a defendant agrees to plead guilty.
“I’d like to thank Judge Chun for his gracious offer here, and I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life. I think that’s the punishment in itself,” Yarimi said. “And I think about the victims every day. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about what I did.”
Assistant District Attorney Michael Boykin renewed his objection to the plea deal Wednesday.
“She used her cell phone while driving. She blew through multiple red lights. Unsurprisingly, the defendant, concerned only with her own safety, wore her own seat belt. Unfortunately, she remained disinterested in who else she put at risk,” Boykin wrote in a blistering sentencing memo filed Tuesday.
“They never stood a chance against the defendant’s 68 mile per hour, 2-ton weapon.”
Yarimi had a suspended license at the time of the crash for a lapse in her insurance, the memo states.
Her car had racked up nearly $11,000 in traffic and parking violations, including 21 speed-camera tickets and five red-light tickets, according to data on howsmydrivingny.nyc.
Boykin argued that Yarimi showed no remorse after her arrest, blamed the victims, and even discussed faking mental illness in calls with her ex-husband.
“I am playing the games … I could also pretend, you know … I could also, you know, put on a show… like, why don’t I just pretend I’m schizophrenic?” she told her ex on a recorded April 22 call from Rikers Island, the prosecutor wrote.
And on April 30, when her ex suggested she apologize, she told him, “Why should I apologize? I’m just as much of a victim as they are.”
She asked him to “contact the judge,” then asked in a May 1 call, “Why isn’t the Jewish community helping me?”
Right after the crash, Yarimi told cops, “The devil is in my eyes. I am haunted inside. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. Prove it. Show me the proof. You have no proof.” She demanded a CT scan for her eyes and said she’d been “raped by cops” at age 14.
In a 2023 lawsuit, Yarimi alleged that an NYPD officer groomed and raped her throughout her teenage years after she was arrested for shoplifting. The city settled her suit for $2 million in December, and the officer was fired from the NYPD in 2022 following allegations of stalking and harassment from another woman.
“While today’s sentence is shorter than the maximum we recommended, it sends a clear message that reckless driving will be vigorously prosecuted and met with serious consequences,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.
Obtained by Daily News
Natasha Saada (right) was killed on March 29 with two of her children when they were struck on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. (Obtained by Daily News)
The Saada family’s civil lawyer Herschel Kulefsky pushed back on that statement.
“No, this sends a clear message that reckless driving, it’s not so bad. She’s been driving recklessly for a long, long time,” he said.
Kulefsky also blasted Yarimi’s statement in court.
“Today was the first time she expressed any apology or remorse, which I think was based on the fact that she’s being sentenced,” he said. “All of a sudden, today, for the first time, there’s tears, and there’s an apology.”
March 31, 2025: Driver said she was ‘possessed’
New York Daily News Front page of the New York Daily News for March 31, 2025: “Unstable” influencer charged with manslaughter in Brooklyn crash had just won $2M lawsuit against NYPD. Miriam Yarimi (above), the driver charged with manslaughter after she crashed her Audi, resulting in the death of a woman and two young children, Diana and Deborah Saada (inset, with brother who was hospitalized), had a suspended license.
Yarimi’s lawyer Joseph Amsel called her apology “heartfelt,” and said that prosecutors had taken her earlier statements out of context.
“They cherry-picked certain phrases,” he said. “They just wrote things just for the sole purpose of trying to dirty her up.”
