Monroe boy struck down in accident

Local teenager dies in car crash

By: Al Wicklund
   Osvaldo Bautista, a 15-year-old boy from Puebla, Mexico, came to Monroe less than a year ago to earn money to bring his mother to a better life in the United States.
   Osvaldo Bautista’s dream of helping his family ended 3:21 a.m. Sunday when a car in which he was a back-seat passenger went off Dayton Road in Jamesburg and hit two parked vehicles and two houses. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident at 3:57 a.m. police said.
   Osvaldo’s cousin, Yolanda Avilez of Monroe, said Wednesday a wake was to be held in New York City Thursday evening and, on Friday, he was to be sent home for burial.
   Ms. Avilez said Osvaldo came here in March 2002 and immediately went to work with a landscaper. He never enrolled in school.
   "He was a very happy, friendly boy and a hard worker. His goal was to earn enough money to bring his mother here to enjoy a better life," Ms. Avilez said.
   Nicholas Sewitch, an assistant prosecutor in the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office, said Osvaldo was a passenger in a 1997 Honda Civic doing 78 mph in a 25-mph zone on Dayton Avenue.
   He said the car, driven by Mauro Conde, 19, of Monroe, went out of control, went into the oncoming lane and continued on a path that took it into a parked pickup truck and a parked car and into the porches at 31 and 33 Dayton Road.
   Mauro Conde was charged with vehicular homicide, reckless driving, driving without a license and underage drinking.
   Mr. Sewitch said there were two other passengers in the car, Augustine Conde of Jamesburg, Mauro Conde’s brother, seated in back, and Epifano Velasquez, 23, also of Jamesburg, the owner of the car, seated in the front passenger’s seat.
   None of Osvaldo Bautista’s traveling companions was seriously injured.
   Augustine Conde was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick where he was treated and released. Mr. Velasquez refused treatment.
   Mauro Conde was taken by helicopter to Capital Health System at Fuld in Trenton where he was treated and released from the hospital. He was lodged in the Middlesex County Adult Corrections Center on $200,000 bail. He remained there as of Thursday.
   Mr. Sewitch said Mauro Conde admitted to consuming alcohol before driving.