The trial of the Long Island woman charged with running over a mom who was mourning her slain daughter at a makeshift memorial ended in a mistrial Monday after the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on the top count.
A Suffolk County judge ruled the case against Ann Marie Drago a mistrial after jurors were deadlocked on whether she was guilty of the most serious charge levied against her, negligent homicide.
Drago ran over well-known anti-gang activist Evelyn Rodriguez in 2018 in front of a Brentwood memorial for Rodriguez’s murdered teen daughter, Kayla Cuevas.
The 16-year-old high school student and her friend were killed by the notorious MS-13 gang in 2016.
While jurors couldn’t agree on the negligent homicide charge, Drago was found guilty of petit larceny, but acquitted of criminal mischief, ABC 7 reported.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement his office intends to retry the case against Drago.
“The death of Evelyn Rodriguez at the memorial she set up for her daughter Kayla was a tragedy. It did not have to happen,” Tierney, who took office in 2021, said.
“We respect the work the jury put into this case. We stand prepared to retry the negligent homicide charge and are gratified that the jury found Ann Marie Drago responsible for stealing items from Kayla’s memorial.”
Drago’s first trial in 2020 ended in a guilty verdict on negligent homicide, but that conviction was thrown out by a state appeals court last year due to prosecutorial misconduct.
State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro said in court Monday he believed the jury was “hopelessly deadlocked,” according to Newsday.
“I know how hard you worked on this case,” Ambro reportedly told jurors.
The deadly 2018 encounter between Drago and Rodriguez happened hours before a vigil was supposed to start to mark the second anniversary of Cuevas’ death.
Drago claimed she felt threatened when Rodriguez and her partner Freddy Cuevas ran up to her Nissan Rogue and started cursing at her after Drago dismantled the memorial.
Drago’s family had claimed they could not sell their mother’s home because mourners kept stopping by to pay their respects to the late teen.
Drago’s lawyers argued a step Rodriguez took just as Drago hit the gas during the confrontation caused her foot to get stuck under one of the tires, but Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Laura Newcombe insisted during closing arguments that Rodriguez would have been mowed down even without that step, Newsday reported.
Rodriguez was welcomed to the White House in January 2018 by then-President Donald Trump for his State of the Union Address.
A MS-13 gangbanger pleaded guilty in federal court this year in connection to the murders of Cuevas and her friend Nisa Mickens, 15, as well as two other slayings.