There are two empty bedrooms, 250 miles apart.
One is in Leesburg, Va., where Christina Cassidy grew up before following the dreams that led her to Rutgers Law School in Newark.
The other is in Elizabeth, where Mauricio Silvera lived with his family.
These two empty rooms now are chambers of grief for two families. They are places of profound sorrow, filled with the memories, the love, the laughter and the voices of two young people who are never coming home.
What follows is not an attempt to equate the losses suffered by the Cassidys and Silveras. There is no comparison. Christina Cassidy is dead and Mauricio Silvera is not.
She was taken away at age 25 in the most cruel and inexplicable way — the way parents dread when their children are little and impulsive and are admonished repeatedly to “look both ways” before crossing a street.
On the morning of Sept. 3, 2016, Christina attempted to cross McCarter Highway in Newark at Raymond Boulevard. It was 3:25 a.m., and she was coming home from a night out of listening to live music in the clubs of New York. The streets were all but deserted. She and a friend began to cross while the light for oncoming traffic was still green.
Over the rise came Mauricio Silvera, exceeding the 35 mph speed limit, but not by insane amounts. Christina’s friend turned back; Christina ran toward the other side into the path of Silvera’s car.
To say what happened next is “every parent’s nightmare” seems weak and cliche. It does not capture the anger, the depth of sadness, the embedded memory loop of sleepless nights and restless days, the horrifying images of a precious child dying in the street in the most unforgiving disturbing way.
Kevin and Helen Cassidy, Christina’s parents, and her younger sister, Kaitlin, live with that. Every second, every minute of every day.
After Silvera’s car hit Christina, he panicked. He kept going.
At Silvera’s sentencing on Tuesday in Essex County Superior Court, his defense attorney, Michael Robbins, opened his statement to the court like this:
“He should have stopped. He should have stayed. He should have helped … if nothing else but to hold her hand and not leave her alone until help arrived.”
But he didn’t.
It took four hours after the accident before Silvera turned himself in, and he was charged with leaving the scene. The police determined he was not impaired. He had a clean driving record and no criminal record of any kind. Still, because the accident involved personal injury, the charge was a fourth-degree felony. Under long-standing immigration laws, the crime exposed Silvera to deportation to his home country of Uruguay. The 23-year-old has lived in Elizabeth – a sanctuary city — since he was 9. He currently has a work permit. Prior to that he was an undocumented immigrant.
In an unusual plea bargain between the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and federal immigration officials, Silvera received a suspended three-year jail term and was to be deported after Tuesday’s sentencing.
The sentencing brought together two families, and the friends of both. The courtroom was filled, a testament to the how both these young adults were loved and cherished by their families.
Silvera was brought out, hands cuffed behind him, wearing the forest green jumpsuit of the Essex County Correctional facility, where he has been held since the accident, awaiting deportation to his native Uruguay.
He stood as Robbins, mourned the loss of Christina Cassidy and spoke of her as a “great, amazing kid,” detailing her education, community service and giving nature. He spoke about how Christina learned Russian when her aunt adopted a child from that country.
He then spoke of how his client, too, was a “great kid” – a hard worker, holding two jobs to help his family, active in church, and never in trouble.
It was the beginning of an emotional journey few had ever seen in a courtroom.
In a sentencing proceeding, the defendants are allowed to bring in people to testify on their behalf, followed by the impact statements by the victim’s side.
Silvera’s sister, Paola Vargas, stepped in front of Essex Judge Ronald D. Wigler and offered the Cassidys “most sincere condolences and prayers that God gives you strength” through their lifetime ordeal. With tears in her eyes, there was no doubt of the sincerity.
It was the first reference of many to God, by both families, and truth be told, a believer could feel his presence in that courtroom, where so much loss, grief and forgiveness swirled like a perfect storm of heart-stabbing emotion.
When Vargas spoke of how Silvera was a doting uncle to her 3-year-old son, Benjamin, she broke down and her brother did, too. Robbins wiped the tears from Silvera’s eyes, and discreetly whisked away some of his own. Silvera looked toward his parents, Carlos and Milda, sitting with the happy boy, oblivious to the fact that his uncle would be 5,200 miles away by week’s end – to rarely be seen again.
“He can’t re-enter the country, and the family doesn’t have the money to travel,” Robbins said after the hearing. “This is the collateral consequence of the immigration debate. This is a real kid, a real family being broken up. He’s got nobody in Uruguay. They’re all here.”
When it was Silvera’s turn to speak at the hearing, Robbins held a letter in front of him and in a trembling voice and with tears streaming down his face, he expressed deep remorse, knowing “I took a life that was valuable to God.” He spoke of how the accident replayed over and over in his mind, and the guilt of his actions had hollowed him out.
He threw himself on the mercy of God and the Cassidys, saying he could not forgive himself and “begged for their forgiveness.”
And at that moment, he looked toward them and Kevin Cassidy gave him a slight, almost indiscernible nod, as if to say, “Yes, we understand your pain, too,” and in that nod was an unspoken promise of forgiveness.
Wigler said he had received “many, many, many” letters about Christina Cassidy and that she was the kind of young woman “I would have been privileged and honored to one day have as a law clerk.”
Her parents came forward to read their victim impact statement and with great composure, Helen Cassidy, spoke of their daughter as a precocious toddler, a loving “best friend” of a big sister, a person who cared deeply about people. She worked as an intern in the Washington, D.C., Public Defender’s Service and was going to law school with plans to do some kind of socially meaningful work.
Her mother related the story of how Christina once had to read a victim impact statement to a man charged with murder. The experience shook her and she told her mother that she hoped her family would never have to endure such horror.
“And now here we are,” Helen Cassidy said.
She spoke of how their family of four “was as close as family could be” and how Christina was the center. She used words like “incalculable loss.” She mourned not only her daughter, but the grandchildren she and her husband would never have. She told of how, when they told Kaitlin over the phone that her sister was gone, “the shattering wails of grief” that followed shook them to their core and haunt them still today.
“We sent our daughter out into the world, only to have her killed walking across the street,” she said.
And then she addressed Silvera, who listened with his head bowed and sobbing.
“God loves you,” she said. “I am so sorry this has happened, but God has a plan for you and you’ll be okay. We forgive you.”
“We forgive you,” echoed Kevin Cassidy.
There wasn’t a person in the courtroom who wasn’t moved to tears. The judge, the attorneys, the spectators, the press.
And then it was over. The sentence was imposed by Wigler who called the case “horrific from everybody’s perspective … for everyone in this courtroom, this is an awful day.”
Mauricio Silvera was led out, back to jail, waiting to be sent away and separated from his family.
The two families filed out of the court together, shoulder to shoulder.
In the crowded hallway, Kevin Cassidy passed Carlos Silvera. The two men embraced tightly and not for a short amount of time, sharing loss and giving and accepting forgiveness before going their separate ways, inextricably linked for all time by a fateful, tragic accident.
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.
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