Famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s sister-in-law was killed earlier today when she was struck by a US Postal truck while riding her bike in Manhattan, police said.
Marilyn Dershowitz, 68, was out cycling with her husband on West 29th Street around noon when she was struck while going down the Chelsea street. She later died at Bellevue Hospital.
Nathan Dershowitz was riding ahead of his wife, a retired Manhattan Supreme Court special referee, and didn’t realize what happened at first.
“We were out for a bike ride. We got to a light. I made the light, and she stopped for it,” said Nathan Dershowitz, 71. “I went slowly ahead. I’m waiting, I’m waiting. All of a sudden I see all these police around.”
He raced back to the scene, just underneath a dark building overhang that sits above West 29th Street, and found his bleeding wife, he told The Post.
“She was passing through a narrow space between two vehicles, one was a mail truck and one was a car. No one wanted to give the other space and the mail truck just ran her over and kept going,” he said. “Two women who were in a car behind her told me what happened.”
The truck driver, who left the scene of the accident apparently not realizing he had hit anyone, was found a short while later.
“Bellevue spent nearly an hour on her, with 20 physicians trying to resuscitate her,” a devastated Nathan Dershowitz said.
The couple, who have two children and three grandchildren, live in Tudor City.
Marilyn Dershowitz was a law clerk until 1998 when she landed the plum job of court referee, a role similar to that of a full time judge.
“She retired just six months ago so that we could do some enjoying life,” he said. The couple were planning on spending a couple of weeks with their grandchildren, who are in New York.
“She was looking forward to that,” he said.
Harvard legal eagle Alan Dershowitz, who once famously helped overturn the murder conviction of British socialite Claus von Bulow, confirmed the unfortunate tragedy to The Post but declined further comment.
A recent photo Marilyn Dershowitz and her husband, Nathan. Marilyn was killed by a mail truck today while out on a bike ride in Chelsea. (
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