But on October 24, Martin took a turn for the worse and died.
The funeral was held on March 3 for Raizel Glauber and Nachman Glauber, who were killed by a hit-and-run driver while heading to the hospital early that morning in a livery cab at Kent Avenue and Wilson Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (Todd Maisel/NY Daily News, via Getty)
Acevedo was arrested and sentenced to an eight- to 16-year term for manslaughter. He reportedly sought to explain his apparent treachery by saying that some unnamed crime kingpin had kidnapped a relative and threatened to kill his entire family if he did not shoot Martin.
Acevedo was released in 1997, only to be arrested 12 days later for robbery. He was returned to prison but was back out in time to get arrested on federal firearms charges. He was sentenced to six years and five months.
Meanwhile, the rapper Curtis Jackson adopted the name 50 Cent. The original 50 Cent had died all but destitute; the hospital had returned only his gold teeth, and somebody had apparently cleaned out the safety deposit box at the Dime Savings Bank where he was known to keep bail money. 50 Cent the rapper now pledged to buy the original 50 Cent a suitable headstone.
The result was an outsize coin fashioned from Indian red marble and inscribed with a big “50c.” The rapper reportedly failed to make good on his promise, and the tab was picked up by James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond, a former jail mate of Martin’s turned music mogul. Henchman has since been convicted of cocaine trafficking and is presently under indictment for allegedly conspiring to murder an associate of 50 Cent the rapper.
Acevedo had been out of prison for six years when police pulled him over in a BMW last month. He told police that he was just coming from a baby shower at the Sugar Hill Club in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He allegedly tested at almost twice the legal limit for blood alcohol and was arrested for drunk driving.
Acevedo was given an April 20 court date and was back at the wheel of another BMW early Sunday morning. The police estimate that he was driving at least 60 mph down Kent Avenue when he reached the intersection with Wilson Street.
By his own admission to reporters, Acevedo plowed into the cab carrying the expectant couple and then fled the scene. The baby was delivered alive, and the couple’s family and community sought some solace in the hope that this link to the ill-fated two would survive. That was not to be, and after a posthumous circumcision the newborn boy was buried with his parents.
The man who had said he was coming from a baby shower at his arrest for drunk driving was now wanted for fleeing a crash that killed a baby, along with the baby’s parents. Reporters seeking background information on Acevedo visited his mother’s home in Brooklyn. A woman who declined to give her name said she had nothing to tell them, adding, “I didn’t raise him.”
When he spoke on a friend’s cellphone to reporters from the New York Daily News and WABC news on Tuesday, Acevedo said he intended to surrender as soon as he consulted a lawyer. Police said he still had turned himself in as of the early evening.
Acevedo has unquestionably locked himself into the story of fleeing gunfire. And on a recording of the call it sure sounds like he said it was on faraway Carlton Avenue.
He will surprise nobody if he seeks to make the story more plausible by suggesting that the gunman’s supposed cry of “nothing is ever forgotten” was a reference to the killing of a onetime legend of the Brooklyn streets.
“My heart goes out to them,” he said of the couple in the cellphone talk with reporters. “I didn’t know they died until I saw the news.”
But Acevedo almost certainly knew they were seriously injured. And even if the ghost of 50 Cent himself had been shooting at him blocks away, Acevedo is not likely to convince anyone that he could have been so scared as to justify leaving a pregnant woman and her husband to die.
He had better get used to people thinking he is a very bad guy indeed.
Hit-and-Run Driver Julio Acevedo Talks, Suggests 50 Cent Connection - The Daily Beast