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Rocco Benedetto, 36, was free on bail, having been released Saturday, when he was re-arrested for a crash that occurred in Ramsey just moments before the fatal accident last Friday on Route 17 in Ridgewood.
However, a judge allowed the married father of two the opportunity to post $15,000 of his $150,000 bail following the new set of charges.
An assistant Bergen County prosecutor told a judge that Benedetto, who drove a half-mile before stopping to call police, first ditched a small bag of Xanax, Oxycontin and Methandrostenolome (an anabolic steroid) at an area service station, according to a report on northjersey.com.
In addition to vehicular homicide, Benedetto is charged with leaving the scene of the crash that killed Dorothy Scordato of Allendale as she headed to pick up her mentally disabled son for the weekend. Other charges involve injuries sustained by others involved in the crashes.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Martin Delaney told Superior Court Judge Harry G. Carroll that a woman came to authorities saying she’d been struck by Benedetto’s white Mercedes on Friday, the newssite reported from today‘s open-court hearing.
When she pulled over, Delaney said, Benedetto fled south on Route 17, where his sedan slammed into Scordato’s Honda Element, flinging it into another vehicle. Scordato died shortly after emergency workers rushed her to The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. (See: Mahwah man charged in DWI death )
MORE: Freedom for drunken killer
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