West Babylon Man Pleads Guilty in Death of Wyandanch Jogger During Police Chase

Jason Jean-Joseph, a 24-year-old West Babylon resident driving on a suspended license, struck and killed a 29-year-old jogger on Wyandanch Avenue when he accelerated his 2018 BMW 5 Series away from a police traffic stop last June, then fled with a loaded 9mm pistol and spent more than two months evading arrest. On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty.

Jean-Joseph entered his plea before Acting Supreme Court Justice Anthony S. Senft, Jr. on March 31, admitting to Manslaughter in the Second Degree, Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, and five additional charges including Unlawful Fleeing a Police Officer in the First Degree and Leaving the Scene Without Reporting. Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced the plea on April 1. Jean-Joseph faces a maximum of 15 years in prison at his May 1, 2026 sentencing.

Officers attempted to pull over Jean-Joseph's BMW just before 7:30 p.m. on June 13, 2025. Rather than stopping, he accelerated, turned onto Wyandanch Avenue, and struck Hillel Fuld, a Hell's Kitchen resident who was out jogging. Fuld was transported to Good Samaritan University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Known to friends as Lewis, Fuld was 29 years old and a Teaneck, New Jersey native who played organized rugby and documented his passions as a toy collector and photographer on Instagram under @lewisfuld. His death briefly set off a wave of mistaken online grief: at least one news outlet confused him with Hillel Fuld, a well-known Israeli tech blogger who shares his name and is his first cousin once removed. Hundreds of followers flooded the blogger's social media accounts with condolences before he posted on Facebook to clarify he was alive, calling the victim "a great kid" and describing his death as "very shocking and devastating."

After the collision, Jean-Joseph drove to Babylon, abandoned the BMW, and discarded the loaded 9mm with a high-capacity magazine in woods near John Street before fleeing on foot. Authorities arrested him on Aug. 29, 2025, more than two months after the crash.

The full charge sheet reflects both the fatal collision and the armed flight that followed. The manslaughter count, a Class C felony, carries the 15-year maximum. Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree is a Class C violent felony in its own right. Unlawful Fleeing a Police Officer in the First Degree, a Class D felony under New York Penal Law, applies specifically when a driver causes serious physical injury or death while evading a police stop, making Jean-Joseph's decision to accelerate a separately chargeable act with its own prison exposure.

"Fleeing from the police puts the lives of everyone in danger," District Attorney Tierney said. "Here, this defendant's dangerous and reckless choice killed a 29-year-old man simply out jogging. Nothing can bring back Hillel Fuld, but today's plea affirms that the defendant will be held accountable for his unconscionable actions."

Jean-Joseph's case is the latest in a series of fatal pedestrian crashes prosecuted by the Suffolk County DA's office. In November 2025, a Selden man was indicted after his car allegedly struck and killed 37-year-old Victoria Hutson on Boyle Road. In March 2025, a Bay Shore man was indicted after allegedly stealing a vehicle and fatally striking a pedestrian before fleeing the scene. In each case, prosecutors paired leaving-the-scene and fleeing charges with the underlying vehicular counts, a pattern that treats flight as independent criminal exposure rather than an afterthought to the crash itself.

At the May 1 sentencing, Justice Senft will weigh a seven-count charge sheet anchored by two Class C felonies. For Fuld's family, that hearing will be the final act of a case that began just before dusk on a residential street in Wyandanch.