A Long Island woman facing up to 15 years in prison for killing an NYPD officer in a hit-and-run crash complained that she didn't '...
A Long Island woman facing up to 15 years in prison for killing an NYPD officer in a hit-and-run crash complained that she didn't 'deserve' to be arrested when police tracked her down, prosecutors say.
Jessica Beauvais, 32, was arraigned in Queens Supreme Court on Tuesday on a 13-count indictment for the April 27 death of NYPD Highway Officer Anastasios Tsakos, including aggravated manslaughter, manslaughter, aggravated criminally negligent homicide and vehicular manslaughter.
Beauvais stood before the judge wearing a tan jumpsuit and her hands in cuffs behind her back. Her family, including her 13-year-old son, were in the courtroom when she pleaded not guilty and was denied bail.
Prosecutors described how Beauvais allegedly whined: 'Why did my first accident have to be a cop?' as she sat in the back of a squad car following her arrest, according to The New York Daily News reported.
'Not that I wanted it to be someone else, but f**k, I've been driving since I was 16 and haven't hit as much as a pothole,' she was quoted as saying.
Jessica Beauvais, a 32-year-old mother of one, looks to her family as she's led of the Queens courtroom
Beauvais was arraigned on a 13-count indictment in Queens court
Beauvais's family was in the courtroom on Tuesday during her arraignment
NYPD Detective Anastasios Tsakos' parents - Stavros and Anna - in the courtroom for Beauvais' arraignment
Tsakos, 43, who was posthumously promoted to detective, was a husband and a father of a six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son.
Hundreds of peopled gathered on May 4 at St. Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Shrine Church in Greenlawn, New York - including NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea - to pay their respects to the beloved NYPD cop.
NYPD officer Anastasios Tsakos (pictured) was promoted to detective posthumously
'This is a heartbreaking case that has left the police officer's parents, his widow and their two young children and our entire community mourning his loss,' Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement after Tuesday's arraignment.
PBA President Pat Lynch, who was in the courtroom with Tsakos' family and other officers, didn't mince words after the arraignment, calling her 'evil.'
'She doesn't look evil but her actions created evil,' Lynch said. 'She has to answer for what she's done. She has to pay for the consequences that those hateful words and those evil actions caused to a police officer and his family.'
Beauvais was allegedly almost double the legal alcohol limit hours after the early morning April 27 fatal collision with Tsakos.
She was allegedly 'driving at a high rate of speed' on the Long Island Expressway when she ran over the 14-year veteran of the force, who was redirecting traffic for a different crash, according to the indictment.
She allegedly hit him head-on, hurled him around 200 feet into the air and onto a nearby patch of grass, DA Katz said.
One of his legs was severed, according to the indictment.
Beauvais, who was driving with a suspended license at the time, admitted she 'heard a thump' but continued to drive for several exits with a 'completely shattered' windshield.
NYPD PBA President Pat Lynch called Beauvais 'evil' after the arraignment
Lynch and several members of the NYPD joined Tsakos' family in the courtroom Tuesday
Tsakos' parents outside the Queens courtroom during Lynch's press conference
Uniformed members of the NYPD stood outside the courtroom during the arraignment
Beauvais was seen downing shots just hours before the crash
She finally stopped after she jumped a curb, Katz said. Beauvais then put her car in reverse and rammed the police vehicle behind her before finally coming to a full stop, according to the indictment.
'I was driving tonight,' Beauvais told cops at the precinct, according to The Daily News. 'I was operating the vehicle. I was going to pick up my son. I came from the studio. I had a shot of Absolute 1800. I don't drink, I smoke.
'I smoke weed regularly,' she said, according to prosecutors. 'I drank two glasses of wine and dropped my son off in West Hempstead, I smoked at the podcast studio. I had two more glasses of wine and had two shots of 1800 Patron, I don't know why they stopped me. Speeding I guess. They say I hit someone. I heard a thump.'
After her arrest, when she was led out of the NYPD's 107th Precinct in handcuffs, she was sobbing and saying, 'Sorry that I hit him and that he's dead.'
Hours before the fatal collision, Beauvais posted a rambling video of herself on Facebook Live where she said police officers are 'signing up for potential death' as part of the job and boasted about carrying a knife while drinking unknown liquids throughout the footage.
Katz said there is a list of alleged bad choices, 'from drinking and getting high and getting behind the wheel of a car, that ended tragically.'
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea spoke at Tsako's memorial earlier this month, which was limited to 180 attendees due to the pandemic.
Tsakos grew up in Greece and New York City, before serving in the Greek army after high school.
He then went on to work in his father's diner on Long Island, before studying aviation in college to follow his dreams of flying helicopters for the NYPD, Shea said. The officer and his family had just moved to East Northport last year.
De Blasio spoke of Tsakos' 'heroism' and hit out at his tragic loss of life.
'It does not make sense how someone could live his life right in every way and be taken from us so horribly,' he told mourners.
'But his heroism uplifts us. Some people are true heroes. Some people are there for others. And that in every way was Anastasios Tsakos.'
Beauvais is walked out of the 107th Precinct in Queens after her arrest on April 28
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