Dashing young Colombian brewery “billion-heir” Andres Santo Domingo could use a few of his father’s cervezas — and maybe a few of his millions, too.
The hubby of glamorous Vogue contributing editor Lauren Davis surrendered to cops and nervously pleaded guilty to knowingly leaving the scene of an injury-causing Midtown car accident today. It’s an admission that experts say dramatically strengthens the victim’s ongoing $100 million lawsuit.
“It’s crazy,” Santo Domingo said with a dismissive wave of his hand, speaking of the lawsuit after his misdemeanor, no-jail plea.
“It’s the car insurance handling it,” added Santo Domingo, whose father, at an estimated worth of $6 billion, is the second wealthiest man in Colombia.
Santo Domingo took his plea in tan linen khakis and a royal blue blazer with brass buttons — the only defendant in Manhattan Criminal Court who looked like he’d just stepped off a yacht.
“You’re not getting me!” he shouted afterward at a news photographer, hiding his face behind his community service paperwork — he’ll have to do six days worth, and suffer a 90-day driving suspension — as he bolted out of the courthouse. He took off — on foot — up Centre Street, his open blazer flapping in the wind.
Santo Domingo admitted in court that on March 29, at the corner of East 34th St. and Third Avenue, he drove his black Mercedes-Benz into 26-year-old college freshman Ryan Coutu — and then drove away, despite knowing that he’d caused Coutu injury.
“Subhuman,” Coutu’s lawyer, Herb Subin, called Santo Domingo after court.
Coutu had been struck hard in the elbow by the driver’s side mirror of Santo Domingo’s AMG Mercedes — “The really fast kind,” the lawyer said.
Both men made eye contact, the lawyer said. Then, Santo Domingo peeled out, running over Coutu’s foot and leaving him crumpled in the street, the lawyer said. “My guy is lying on the ground and this real humanitarian leaves him lying there,” the lawyer said. Coutu is still rehabbing his herniated discs, and needs another surgery to repair nerve damage in his elbow, he said.
Santo Domingo’s admission today is “a tremendous help to the plaintiff,” said lawyer Howard Hershenhorn, who repped one of the 11 victims in the notorious 2002 Lizzie Grubman hit-and-run. “His admittedly leaving the scene is going to enrage the jury.”
“I felt it was the best to do what was necessary to put this matter behind me and my family,” Santo Domingo later said in a written press statement. He and his wife are expecting their second child.
Coutu also issued a statement: “After having to endure surgery and spending over 100 days in physical therapy it does seem unfair that the criminal only gets six days community service, but at least he finally admitted to what he did. Sentencing is the judge’s job — my job is only to get better. Hopefully he won’t plow anyone else down .”
Additional reporting Rebecca Rosenberg