Rachel Lodice sentenced to prison in fatal crash that killed church clerk Cynthia Mitchell, of Jericho

A Georgia woman who admitted being high on marijuana, speeding and running through multiple red lights in Massapequa when she fatally struck another driver was sentenced to 3 1/3 to 10 years in prison Monday.

Rachel Lodice, 22 — who pleaded guilty in June to manslaughter and other charges in the 2024 car crash that killed 64-year-old Cynthia Mitchell, of Jericho, a wife and mother who was active in her church — listened to several emotional speeches and letters from the victims' families.

Dozens of family members and friends packed the Nassau County courtroom in support of Mitchell, who was killed in the crash, and her friend and passenger Malinda Ward, who was injured.

"April 23rd was the last day I had peace," said Charlese Mitchell, who sobbed as she spoke about losing her mother, with whom she was especially close. "Not only did you take my mother, you took my ability to live without fear."

Cynthia Mitchell's husband, Theodore Mitchell, told the court that the defendant "took my best friend ... my wife, my partner of 25 years ... She destroyed my life and then ran away like a coward."

Prosecutor Alex DePalo read Ward's statement, in which she described Mitchell as her sister and said she's traumatized by the loss of her friend.

"I hate the fact that now everything scares me," Ward said in her statement. "I don't look forward to anything anymore. I'm tortured by the memory that Cynthia is not here."

Judge Tammy Robbins, speaking directly to Mitchell's daughter, who was in her senior year of high school when her mother was killed, said: "I heard your words. I feel the weight of them."

Robbins called Mitchell "full of love, life and spirit" and said she would want her family and friends "to find some type of peace."

"I think that she would want you all to carry that legacy forward," Robbins said.

But Robbins added that no number or years in prison would make the family whole.

"You're a young woman who suffered a lot of issues in your life," Robbins told Lodice, adding that she was "acting in a manner that was reckless and you're going to have to live with that for the rest of your life."

She added: "I do think that you have remorse."

That comment prompted a rebuke outside the courtroom from Ward's mother.

"This girl has never even looked at us to say I'm sorry," Jewell Ward said of the defendant. "She hasn't even looked at us. She has shown us nothing. But the judge saw remorse."

Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly said afterward that she was "disappointed also" with the sentence, saying that her office had recommended that Lodice receive the maximum of 7 to 15 years.

"This person took another person's life," said Donnelly, who questioned why it was treated differently than someone who "shoots someone with a bullet."

Lodice declined to speak in court when given the opportunity. She cried when the judge spoke to her.

Her attorney, in very brief comments, asked the judge to sentence her to the terms she received.

Lodice, who was driving approximately 76 mph five seconds before the crash on a roadway where the speed limit is 35 mph, T-boned the 2022 Nissan Altima being driven by Mitchell, authorities have said. Mitchell was the South Hempstead Baptist Church's clerk.

Lodice, who was on Long Island staying with her boyfriend's family at the time of the crash, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, assault, vehicular manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatality without reporting, grand larceny and driving while ability impaired by drugs.

Prosecutors had said that Lodice was driving her 2023 Kia Rio at about 6:30 p.m. on April 23, 2024, while leaving a Target store. She then stopped in a Walgreens parking lot before she started speeding on Hicksville Road, driving on the wrong side of the double yellow line and over a raised median, prosecutors have said. She also ran several red lights, officials said.

About 6:45 p.m., Lodice went through a red light at the intersection of Hicksville Road and Sunrise Highway.

Mitchell, who was on the way to the arts and crafts store Hobby Lobby at the time of the crash to make a basket to celebrate her daughter's then-upcoming graduation, was taken to Nassau University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival, prosecutors have said. Ward had 10 broken ribs and a lacerated spleen and lung and was treated and released from the hospital.

Lodice fled the scene of the crash in a Town of Oyster Bay public safety officer’s vehicle that had stopped to provide assistance, and drove for several miles before the vehicle’s engine was remotely disabled by officials on a dead-end street in Seaford, prosecutors have said.

Inside the car, Lodice had put on the town public safety officer's vest "and was apparently eating his lunch," Donnelly said.