Hit-and-run driver who mowed down 91-year-old Holocaust survivor charged with vehicular manslaughter

By The Liberty Telegraph | July 7, 2019

A woman who hit a 91-year-old survivor of the Nazi occupation as he walked his dog in California, then drove over him as she fled the scene, was charged with vehicular manslaughter and a host of other felonies.

Joyce Bernann McKinney, 68, struck 91-year-old Gennady Bolotsky on June 17 in the Los Angeles area and drove off, according to prosecutors. Bolotsky later died at a hospital.

“McKinney is charged with running over Gennady Bolotsky as he walked his dog in a marked crosswalk,” the prosecutors said. “Bolotsky died as a result of his injuries and the defendant allegedly did not stop and render aid.”

The deed was caught on surveillance video. McKinney was driving a white pickup truck with a white camper shell and cargo carrier on the back, according to KTLA.

She is charged with several felonies, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office said in a media release: one count each of assault with a deadly weapon, assault with an automobile, hit-and-run driving resulting in death, and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

Police also allege that she “inflicted great bodily injury on the victim who was 70 years of age or older,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Scheduled for arraignment Friday, McKinney could face up to 11 years behind bars if convicted, prosecutors said.

It was an especially tragic death for a man who had fled the Nazi occupation in World War II, leaving his native Ukraine to escape communist Russia, his granddaughter Adriana Bolotsky told KTLA.

The scene of the accident was the same spot where Bolotsky had been hit 15 years earlier and survived, reported KABC.

“He was supposed to live to 100 or more,” his son, Michael Bolotsky, told KABC. “At 91, he had more energy than a person half his life.”