Two years after a beloved 77-year-old Brooklyn College professor was mowed down by a hit-and-run BMW driver just blocks from campus, cops say they have nabbed the heartless motorist.
Ex-con Richard Williams was arrested Wednesday for criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
He is accused of slamming into Associate Professor Marguerite Iskenderian at Nostrand Ave. and Campus Road in Flatbush about 8:15 p.m. April 24, 2021.
Williams was making a right turn off Nostrand Ave. in a BMW X5 when he allegedly slammed into her and kept going, cops said.
Medics rushed Iskenderian to Mount Sinai Hospital but she couldn’t be saved.
Cops didn’t immediately know who the victim was because Iskenderian was carrying no identification, police sources said.
The victim had been a professor at Brooklyn College since 1972 and worked out of the library as a music cataloger, Provost Anne Lopes said at the time.
“She was a dedicated and gifted employee who worked tirelessly to improve access to the college’s rich music collection,” Lopes posted on Brooklyn College’s Facebook page. “She earned the deep respect and affection of her Brooklyn College colleagues and catalogers throughout CUNY.”
Longtime friends said Iskenderian was an accomplished cellist and pianist and an avid bird watcher.
“She never stopped learning and sharing what she learned,” Professor Honora Raphael posted shortly after Iskenderian’s death. “I cannot adequately express how much my family and I will miss Marguerite.”
Iskenderian lived close to Brooklyn College’s campus, just around the corner from where she was hit.
After an exhaustive investigation, detectives identified Williams as the hit-and-run driver, although it wasn’t immediately disclosed how cops linked him to the crash. A Brooklyn grand jury indicted Williams in January.
He was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court after his arrest Wednesday and ordered held on Rikers Island $100,000 bail.
He hadn’t posted bail and is scheduled back in court in June.
Williams has already done one stint behind bars. In 1992 he was sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of a Brooklyn robbery at age 23, according to court records. He was released from prison in 1999, records show.