A suspected car thief was arrested Wednesday on manslaughter and other charges for killing a man walking home from a mosque in a bizarre Brooklyn hit-and-run in January.
Randy Pimentel, 23, of the Bronx, was behind the wheel of a box truck when he clipped, then dragged 59-year-old Nasir Nadim for nearly seven blocks on Jan. 23, then struck Nadim again after he fell into the roadway, according to cops.
Pimentel — who was already facing charges connected to the theft of a half-dozen luxury vehicles from a Queens auto body shop — was arrested Wednesday morning on manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal crash, assault and other charges. He was ordered held on $150,000 bail.
Nadim was on his way home from praying at the Dawood Mosque, walking near Clinton and State Sts. in Brooklyn Heights when, cops said, the 2019 Freightliner box truck hit him shortly before 1 p.m.
He may have tried to to confront the driver after that initial collision, and appears to have tried to open the driver’s side door, a police source said in January. and appears to have tried to open the driver’s side door during the wild incident, a police source said.
A friend of Nadim’s told Urdu News that Nadim ran after the driver to ask for his insurance information.
Nadim held on as Pimentel kept going north on Clinton St. for about 600 feet to Cadman Plaza, where Nadim fell and was struck by the truck, cops said. Pimentel fled the scene, according to cops, and medics rushed Nadim in critical condition to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he died seven days later.
Nadim, who lived in Sheepshead Bay, was born in Pakistan and worked as a yellow taxi driver, according to a neighbor.
At some point Nadim became a naturalized U.S. citizen, according to the friend who spoke to Urdu News.
“I liked him very much. He was a good man,” the friend told the newscaster in Urdu. “He was like a brother.”
Back in June 2025, Pimentel was arrested as part of a crew of burglars who cops say hit Express Auto Repair Service, a luxury auto repair shop on 33rd Ave. in Flushing.
He and several other thieves made off with a Porsche, a Bentley, a BMW, and three Mercedes vehicles during the June 2, 2025 heist, according to an indictment. That case is still pending. The charges against him, which include burglary, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, were not bail eligible.
Pimentel’s lawyer, John Williams, declined comment Wednesday.