WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – 75-year-old Judge Sandra Feuerstein of Long Island was killed in a tragic hit and run accident in Boca Raton on Sunday, April 9, 2021.
The federal judge was walking on the sidewalk near the intersection of North Ocean Boulevard just north of Spanish River Park on Friday morning when Nastasia Snape who was driving a red two-door sedan mounted the curb and ran over the judge and a 6-year-old boy.
Both were rushed to the hospital where Judge Feuerstein was pronounced dead. The 6-year-old boy whose name has not been released was treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries and will make a full recovery.
Snape, also the name of a character in the J.K. Rowling book series Harry Potter, was described as driving erratically moments before the accident. At the time of the accident, she attempted to drive around stopped traffic by mounting the curb which is where she struck and killed judge Feuerstein.
After the accident, Snape fled the scene and was apprehended after the second accident in Delray five miles north of the first accident, at the intersection of Southeast 10th Street and Southeast Sixth Avenue.
When approached by police she began to convulse and behave like she was having a seizure and police describe her as not “moving around as the typical person would be who had just been involved in a crash.”
She then began to fight with medics and scream. She states that she was ‘Harry Potter’. At a later point, she did not remember being in an accident.
When police searched her they found mall containers labeled “THC cannabis” and a synthetic drug called T salts, “commonly known to cause erratic excited delirium-like behavior,” the police report said.
Leaving the scene of an accident involving an injury, and leaving the scene of an accident involving death are both considered felonies. Snape was charged with both and is currently being held in the Palm Beach County Jail.
“Tragic news about death of Judge Sandra Feuerstein,” former U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., wrote on Twitter about the loss of the federal Judge. “Outstanding Jurist and great person.”
Judge Feuerstein was born in 1946 in New York. She later attended the University of Vermont and earned her JD at Yeshiva University in 1979.
In 2003, former President George W. Bush nominated her to serve in a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Before that, Feuerstein was a Nassau County District Court judge and was elected to the state Supreme Court in 1994. She will be missed.
If you or a loved one have been involved in a car accident, speak to one of our West Plam Beach car accident lawyers as soon as possible.
About the Author
Michael Feiner
Michael A. Feiner is a partner in the Fort Lauderdale office of Steinger, Greene & Feiner. Since being admitted to the Florida Bar in 2001, Michael has devoted his practice to representing plaintiffs throughout Florida in various tort and strict liability cases and has successfully litigated cases against national insurance companies, large public companies, and governmental agencies, resulting in tens of millions of dollars for his clients.
He has handled all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases on behalf of plaintiffs, including automobile negligence, premises liability, medical malpractice, product liability, dog bites, and sexual harassment. Michael’s product liability case against Microsoft, as well as his representation of victims of sexual harassment and abuse by physicians, has garnered him important media attention at both the local and national levels.
Michael is an experienced trial lawyer and successfully argued an appeal to the Fourth District Court of Appeal. In the reported decision Ortlieb v. Butts, 849 So.2d 1165 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), Michael persuaded the Fourth District Court of Appeal that a directed verdict on liability was appropriate where the defendant did not rebut the presumption of negligence of a rear driver in a rear-end collision.
Michael Feiner
Michael A. Feiner is a partner in the Fort Lauderdale office of Steinger, Greene & Feiner. Since being admitted to the Florida Bar in 2001, Michael has devoted his practice to representing plaintiffs throughout Florida in various tort and strict liability cases and has successfully litigated cases against national insurance companies, large public companies, and governmental agencies, resulting in tens of millions of dollars for his clients. He has handled all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases on behalf of plaintiffs, including automobile negligence, premises liability, medical malpractice, product liability, dog bites, and sexual harassment. Michael’s product liability case against Microsoft, as well as his representation of victims of sexual harassment and abuse by physicians, has garnered him important media attention at both the local and national levels. Michael is an experienced trial lawyer and successfully argued an appeal to the Fourth District Court of Appeal. In the reported decision Ortlieb v. Butts, 849 So.2d 1165 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), Michael persuaded the Fourth District Court of Appeal that a directed verdict on liability was appropriate where the defendant did not rebut the presumption of negligence of a rear driver in a rear-end collision.