Mugshot of Thalia Mohansingh. Photo Credit: THE VIRGIN ISLANDS POLICE DEPARTMENT.
ST. CROIX — A woman who crashed into a concrete wall while driving a vehicle whose owner had not given permission, is now facing criminal charges.
Police were summoned to a location at the Water Ghut Shanty in Christiansted just after 1 a.m. on July 16. Responding officers found a white Ford Explorer with disabling damage facing north along the roadway. With nobody on the scene to identify themselves as the driver or owner, the SUV was towed. Initial investigations revealed that the Explorer had been traveling from east to west on Soboetker Lane when the driver lost control, hit the concrete wall and also ran into a wooden mailbox on the northern shoulder of the roadway, police say.
After a few minutes, a bystander told police that the driver of the vehicle was near the water gut shanty with her mother. The women were in a blue Nissan SUV, officers were told. At the shanty, police met with one woman who identified herself as the mother of Thalia Mohansingh, the woman who was driving the crashed Ford.
Mohansingh’s mother began to cry as police approached, and she told them that the vehicle’s owner had not given her daughter permission to drive the Explorer, nor would he ever do so. The woman told police that she had seen Mohansingh driving the vehicle before the crash, and asked her daughter to let her take it back to the owner’s residence. Mohansingh reportedly ignored her mother, with the collision taking place shortly after. The vehicle’s owner was contacted by cell phone and spoke to the police via that medium.
While on the phone, police were informed by another bystander that Mohansingh had been picked up in a white pick-up truck with two men onboard, and subsequently left her mother behind. The vehicle’s owner then told police that a white-pickup had just driven into his driveway, and expressed fear for his safety. He requested police assistance, and on the way to his residence, officers saw a white pick-up leaving Estate Bugby Hole. They stopped the truck to question the male occupants, who told them that they had just dropped Mohansingh off at the residence of the Explorer's owner.
Police proceeded to the home, where they spoke again to the vehicle’s owner. He told them that around 12:30 p.m., he had given Mohansingh’s boyfriend permission to use the vehicle, as she needed transportation to her grandmother’s house to collect her cell phone. She had told the owner that she would be going directly there and back to the residence, which police discovered was where Mohansingh lived with her mother and the vehicle’s owner.
Despite her assurances, Mohansingh and her boyfriend did not return until about 8:30 p.m., despite numerous calls from the owner about the whereabouts of his vehicle. When she got home that evening, Mohansingh reportedly drank “a bunch of rum.” Half an hour later, someone else who lives at the house reported that she had taken off in the Ford Explorer.
The vehicle’s owner said that he then discovered that the key which he keeps in a safe had gone missing. He told police that he did not know how Mohansingh had gotten into the safe, and informed officers that he has reported the vehicle stolen in the past after Mohansingh had taken it without permission.
Other residents of the home corroborated the story, and Mohansingh was found to have lacerations and abrasions on her face, her right wrist, her left arm, both knees, and swelling in the fingers of her right hand. She told police, when questioned, that she sustained these injuries by walking into a wall. She also smelt strongly of alcohol, police say.
At that point, Thalia Mohansingh was arrested and charged with the unauthorized use of a vehicle. Then, she admitted that her injuries came as a result of the collision, however she claimed that her cousin was driving and that she was a passenger in the vehicle.
Ultimately, Mohansingh faces charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle, negligent driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and destruction of property.
She appeared in court on Monday, but as of press time no details about bail or pre-trial release conditions have been uploaded to the public access portal of the VI Superior Court.
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