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Driver arrested in hit-and-run death of Sandra Feuerstein, New York federal judge

Andrew Cuomo

A woman has been arrested in connection to a hit-and-run accident that killed federal judge Sandra Feuerstein and injured a 6-year-old in Boca Raton, Florida, on Friday.

Nastasia Andranie Snape was arrested Saturday and faces charges of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of a crash involving death and leaving the scene of a crash with injury, according to jail booking records from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

CNN has been unable to determine if Snape is represented by an attorney who would comment on her behalf.

Feuerstein was a judge for the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York.

In a statement, Mark Lesko, acting US attorney of the Eastern District of New York, said the office extended its condolences to the court community and Feuerstein’s family.

“As we mourn her tragic death, we also remember Judge Feuerstein’s unwavering commitment to justice and service to the people of our district and our nation,” Lesko said.

According to a probable cause affidavit from the Boca Raton Police Department, officers responded to a fatal hit and run crash involving two pedestrians on North Ocean Boulevard in Boca Raton on Friday, April 9, at about 10:22 a.m. ET.

A red, two-door sedan traveling northbound had approached the intersection at North Ocean Boulevard and Northwest 40th Street, the affidavit says. The vehicle, which was being driven “erratically,” had gone around stopped traffic when it “entered upon the sidewalk located on the west shoulder of the roadway.”

Feuerstein was walking southbound on the sidewalk when she was hit by the car, the affidavit says. The vehicle continued heading northbound and hit a 6-year-old boy who was crossing Ocean Boulevard.

Feuerstein was taken to Delray Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, the affidavit says.

Police were told by officers with the Delray Beach Police Department that the vehicle had crashed in their jurisdiction. The driver, later identified as Snape, was behind the wheel of the car and appeared to be unconscious, a Delray police officer said, according to the affidavit.

The officer said he saw “Snape begin to convulse or have seizure like movements” as he approached the vehicle. When Snape exited the vehicle, the officer said she would not respond to his attempts to speak with her.

Snape said she was okay, the affidavit says, but the officer noted she “was not making any eye contact or moving around as the typical person would be who had just been involved in a crash.”

Once inside an ambulance, Snape “began to scream and fight with medics stating that she was Harry Potter,” the affidavit says. Medics had to administer ketamine to calm her down.

At Delray Medical Center, another officer said Snape told him she remembered being involved in a crash, but when asked where the crash occurred, Snape said, “I wasn’t in a crash.”

The officer stated her behavior was “erratic” and said her bag contained several containers labeled “THC Cannabis.” Among her belongings was also a drug called “‘T’ salts” the affidavit says, saying they are “commonly known to cause erratic excited delirium like behavior.”

Feuerstein was nominated to the federal bench by George W. Bush in 2003, according to her page on the US Courts website. She was previously a teacher in New York before attending the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Before being nominated to the federal bench, Feuerstein was a judge in Nassau County District Court, a justice for the New York Supreme Court Tenth Judicial District and an associate justice at the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division Second Judicial Department.

CNN has reached out to the court for a statement in response to her death.

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