Woman Tried To Run Over Boyfriend With Her Kids In Car: Police

WEST BABYLON, NY — A Ronkonkoma woman tried to run over her boyfriend with her two children in her car and then lied to police about it, Suffolk police said.

Berline Francois-Torres, 28, was driving a 2010 Nissan east on Fulton Street in West Babylon, with her children, ages 5 and 9, in the car when the vehicle left the roadway and crashed through a fence and into a house at 7:20 p.m. Wednesday.

Francois-Torres told police that her boyfriend had been in the vehicle, and that he had punched her in the face, intentionally grabbed and turned the steering wheel, and caused the crash, police said.

She also told officers that her boyfriend had fled the scene on foot prior to police arrival, police said.

During an investigation, First Precinct Crime Section officers obtained video surveillance footage that showed that Francois-Torres’s boyfriend was not in the vehicle at the time of the crash, and that she intentionally drove the Nissan at him in an attempt to run him over, when she instead lost control of the vehicle, which then crashed through the fence and into the house, police said.

Officers arrested Berline Francois-Torres at her Ronkonkoma home at 11:50 p.m. Francois-Torres was charged with third degree falsely reporting an incident, second degree making an apparently sworn statement, second degree reckless endangerment and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Francois-Torres was held overnight and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip Thursday.