By Beauty Damned

RIP Ivette

This was a very close friend of mine. No words can say...

Motorcycle crash claims Island mom

Sunday, September 10, 2006
By JOHN ANNESE and DOUG AUER

STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

A West Brighton mother of two was killed early yesterday morning and her boy friend was charged with drunken driving after she was launched from the back of his motorcycle in Brooklyn and run over by another motorcycle, police said.

Ivette Hernandez, 32, a legal secretary who paid her own way through college and put her two children into private school, was killed on the Gowanus Expressway near Hamilton Avenue at about 12:29 a.m.

Her boy friend, Luis Perez, 38, suffered minor injuries, and was later arrested on drunk-driving charges, according to a police spokesman.

Police say the couple were riding on a Suzuki with a group of motorcyclists, when a silver Toyota Camry apparently cut off the couple's bike.

Perez lost control and hit another car, throwing Ms. Hernandez off the bike and onto the road, authorities said. She was then run over by a Honda motorcycle driven by someone else in their group, police said.

Ms. Hernandez was taken to Lutheran Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 1 a.m. Perez and the driver of the second motorcycle were also hospitalized, both with non-life-threatening injuries.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office said Perez took a breath test at the hospital some time after the crash, and registered a .05 percent blood alcohol level -- below the legal limit.

An officer noticed signs of intoxication, though, and Perez refused to take any blood or urine tests, the spokesman said.

The district attorney's office is looking into whether Perez will face additional charges, the spokesman said.

Ms. Hernandez and Perez had just bought a home on Staten Island -- part of a white two-family house on Dubois Avenue near Forest Avenue -- six months ago, public records show.

"She was very excited. That was her first home, and she wanted the kids in a nice place because they were getting older," her sister, RoseMary Hernandez, told the Advance last night.

Her two children, Amanda, 14, and Victor, 10, are currently staying with other family members. Perez also has a child from another relationship, family and neighbors said.

Amanda has been "in shock" since her mother's death, RoseMary Hernandez said.

Born in a tough neighborhood in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn, Ms. Hernandez worked hard to put herself through school and raise her children, her sister said. She worked for a law firm in Manhattan, Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper and Scinto.

"If you needed something, she was there," RoseMary Hernandez said. "She was very responsible, very well organized."

Ms. Hernandez frequently wrote in prose and poetry about her thoughts, her life and her family on her myspace.com Web page.

"All the beauty life can give / Is summarized in you./I am proud and I am glad/That life presented you," she wrote in a July 14 poem titled, "To My Daughter."

"She liked poetry," her sister said. "She was very sensitive."

RoseMary Hernandez said she hasn't heard from Perez since the crash, and she's waiting for police to finish their investigation.

"I was angry, but I have the peace of God. I know he's hurting as well," she said. "I would like the truth."

Perez would go out riding with the members of his bike club every Friday night, she said, and occasionally the group's significant others would accompany them.

Neighbors spoke highly of both Ms. Hernandez and Perez last night.

"They're nice people. They're family people. They have family gatherings in the backyard," said Mike Gubitosi, who lives in the adjoining home on Dubois Avenue.