Man found guilty in fatal hit and run

MINEOLA, N.Y. (WABC) -- A man was convicted in a deadly hit and run accident on Long Island.

He hit a well-known restaurant manager and left him to die on the side of the road.

There was a sigh of relief from Dean LaLima's parents.

They had a feeling of a weight lifted.

Eyewitness News was the only station there capturing the emotional moments.

A judge found Raymond Kalenka guilty of leaving LaLima for dead in the road nearly a year ago.

"Everyone needs to be punished to learn from right and wrong," said Janis LaLima, the victim's mother.

"Now I just hope that the judge throws the book at him. I know at the sentencing comes I will be there with hundreds of letters of people who knew him," said John LaLima, the victim's father.

It was last August when Kalenka ran over LaLima.

The 41-year-old was walking home from a late night on the job as a manager at Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Garden City.

Kalenka told the judge he thought he had hit a speed bump.

But the judge said Thursday he wasn't buying it.

"He's a good man, he has three children, it's going to have a big effect on his life. No matter what the prosecutors say, he does feel a great deal of sorrow for the LaLima family," said Brian Davis, Kalenka's defense attorney.

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