Albany County resident Nsikak Okure, 34, of Altamont, was sentenced to eight to 24 years in Albany County Court on Wednesday, April 26.
Before that, he pleaded guilty in February 2023 to aggravated vehicular homicide in the September 2022 death of Tanisha Brathwaite in Albany.
On Sept. 14, 2022, Brathwaite was on his way home from working as a security guard at the State Capitol when Okore was “driving a motor vehicle recklessly while under the influence of a large amount of alcohol” and hit to the avenue near Clinton North Swan Street.
Brathwaite, still wearing her security uniform, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Okure initially pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, but eventually pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide charges and left the scene of the accident without reporting it.
During Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Brathwaite’s mother, Terry Parker, addressed the man who took her daughter’s life.
“I’ll never forgive you. You know what you did,” Parker told Okure. “If you hadn’t been caught, we wouldn’t be here today. You don’t care that you hit her, you only care that you got caught.”
Mary Tanner-Richter, commissioner of the Vehicle Crime Bureau, told the court that Okure’s claims of remorse over Brathwaite’s death contradicted his actions immediately after the accident.
“Not only did he not seek help when he knew he had hit someone with his car, but he expressed concern about the damage to the vehicle over the pedestrians he hit,” she said.
In addition to working as a security guard, Brathwaite is an aspiring writer who published her first novel Caught in a Storm in 2018 under the pseudonym Tani Bee.
in her Introduction to Amazonthe University at Albany graduate describes herself as an up-and-coming writer from Brooklyn who is writing more fiction.
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