Driver who hit 2 women, killing 1, gets 7-14 years

When the first officer to arrive approached Joseph Genovese after he ran down two Missouri tourists outside of Citizens Bank Park in July 2008 - a crash that killed one of the victims and forever changed the other's life - Genovese had just one question:

"He said to me 'Duff, what's going to happen next? Is my insurance going to go up?' " Philadelphia Police Officer Kevin Duffy testified yesterday at Genovese's sentencing hearing in Common Pleas Court.

Well, for the next seven to 14 years Genovese, 20, won't have to worry about insurance as he spends that time in state prison paying in years for what can never be paid for with money.

Genovese, of South Philadelphia - described by Judge Benjamin Lerner as a "totally arrogant, out-of- control and self-absorbed young man" - was sentenced for the July 10, 2008, crash that claimed the life of Cindy Grassi, 53, and caused severe injuries to her friend Sandra Wacker, then 36.

" 'I'm Joseph Genovese from South Philly and I can do any damn thing I want with no consequences,' " Lerner said, mocking the defendant before he handed down his sentence. "Well, Mr. Genovese, today is the day."

Grassi and Wacker, avid Cardinals fans who traveled to a different city each year to watch their team play, had just left an afternoon game and were crossing Broad Street near Curtin when they were hit by Genovese, who was "high out of his mind" in his red Lexus, prosecutors said.

Genovese, an avid marijuana smoker who regularly drove stoned, swerved around at least two cars stopped at a red light to illegally enter the intersection where he hit Grassi and Wacker, according to court testimony.

Wacker, an elementary-school teacher, suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured leg and a bruised lung. Grassi, a retired physical-education teacher, died after two days on life support.

Yesterday, Grassi's daughter-in-law, Cynthia Thompson, said that her eldest daughter finds the brightest star in the sky and calls it "Grandma Grassi" now, and when the sun is shining in her eyes she asks "Grandma Grassi" to move out of the way.

"But when she asks why her grandma is gone, I don't have a good explanation," she said.

In her closing, Assistant District Attorney Beth McCaffery not only slammed Genovese's MySpace page, where he boasted of his exploits with drugs and used his mug shot as his profile photo, but also enumerated his prior arrests - seven in the 21 months before the fatal accident.

Those cases include resisting arrest, theft, drug possession, vandalism, terroristic threats to his family and police, attempted murder and firearms violations.

"He was a ticking time bomb," McCaffery said. "Why did Cindy and Sandy have to be in Philadelphia when that time bomb went off?"

Even after his arrest for the July 10 crash, McCaffery said, Genovese's narcissism was at an all-time high.

"You had no sense at all of the world you changed," she said.

On March 15, 2009, while out on bail, Genovese was arrested again for drug possession, McCaffery said. Though that case was later dismissed, Genovese in December, while at a strip mall, approached a cop - the same one who had arrested him in March - and told the officer that the liquor store wouldn't let him buy alcohol with his dad's credit card, McCaffery said. He was not - and still is not - 21.

When it was Genovese's turn to speak, he rose, gaunt and lanky, and said that the images of the crash still haunt him.

"My heart will cry out to the families for the rest of my life," he said.

In addition to his prison term, Genovese also was ordered to serve 150 hours of community service with Mothers Against Drunk Driving and to pay more than $5,000 in restitution.