EAST GREENWICH, R.I. (WPRI) — Six months after a teenage girl was killed in a car crash, an East Greenwich family has mixed emotions about new charges filed in the case.
The R.I. Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday that a statewide grand jury handed up an indictment charging two people in connection with 17-year-old Olivia Passaretti’s death.
Aramis Segura, 30, faces felony counts of driving to endanger resulting in death and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, according to the office of Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Alicia Peckham, 25, is charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death as an aider and abettor, harboring a criminal, misprision of a felony, and obstructing an officer in execution of their duty.
Police said Segura was driving on I-95 South in Warwick around 1 a.m. on January 1 when he hit the back of Passaretti’s car, forcing it off the highway. He ran off after the crash and was later arrested at his home in Charlestown.
The Passaretti family told 12 News in January they wanted Segura to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Now, the family says despite the lesser charges, they’re pleased to hear there’s been movement in the case.
“It seems like the longest six months and the shortest six months I’ve ever lived in,” Olivia’s stepfather, Dennis Molloy, said Thursday.
The family met with the attorney general’s office before the new charges were announced.
“If he got off with a technicality or something went wrong with it, that would be our only shot, so this would be a less risky path,” Molloy explained.
“He knew what he was doing,” Olivia’s mother, Janine Passaretti-Molloy, said of Segura. “He had no care in the world for anybody that night. He posted what he was going to do, and he did it.”
Passaretti’s parents told 12 News in January they discovered social media posts in Segura’s name saying he intended to get in trouble with his car on New Year’s Eve. At the time, they said the posts showed intent and should lead to more serious charges.
“We wanted the murder 2 charge against him,” Passaretti-Molloy said.
“We know what he is. He murdered Olivia,” she explained, adding any prison time Segura might receive still won’t bring her daughter back.
Both Segura and Peckham are due in court on July 15, and Olivia’s family said they expect a big showing on her behalf.
Prosecutors also plan to seek enhancements to the charges for Segura being a habitual offender, since he has more than a dozen arrests and eight felony convictions on his record.