The son of a Bernie Madoff pal-turned-victim was charged yesterday with drunkenly mowing down a deliveryman in Midtown, leaving him gravely injured.
“He’s hurt in his head very bad,” victim Ricardo Gonzalez’s brother, José, said from his Bronx home. “They should punish him [the driver who hit Ricardo].”
Lexus driver Clark Gettinger, 40 — whose late father, Robert, lost $13 million in the Madoff Ponzi scheme — struck Gonzalez with so much force Friday night that he was thrown from his bike and skidded 20 feet down slush-soaked Eighth Avenue before ending up beneath a double-parked BMW, cops and witnesses said.
Gettinger tried to drive off with a busted windshield, but got stuck in traffic and was arrested trying to run away, police said.
Last night, prosecutors said that before mowing down the deliveryman, Gettinger also hit a cab as it was waiting at a red light. He was held on $50,000 bond on charges of assault, drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident.
“He’s shown a disregard for human life,” Assistant District Attorney Lauren Angelo said at his arraignment hearing.
Defense lawyer Calvin Garber countered that Gettinger, a building manager, “has never been in trouble in his life.”
Gettinger’s dad, Robert, was one of the original Madoff investors in 1973 — and a close family friend of the mega-scammer. The family’s losses included a $3 million trust fund for his sons, reports said.
The injured cyclist– a Mexican immigrant who worked at Cosmic Diner on West 52nd Street — was in critical condition at Bellevue.
Gonzalez works long hours to support his wife, Maria, and three children in Veracruz, but “They can’t come to see him — they don’t have papers,” the victim’s brother said.
Additional reporting by Christine Parker and Anais Morales