A new video shows the horrifying moment when New York Jets cornerback Brandin Echols loses control of his Dodge Charger Hellcat at 84 mph and hits a driver off the road, sending the BMW flying over a fence and into a field.
He is now fighting Echols and the Jets. Stephen Gilberg, 51, of Livingston, N.J., says the accident on April 26, 2022, left him “partially paralyzed.”
Around 2 p.m., the crash happened on the Columbia Turnpike near Morristown Airport, not far from where the Jets train in Florham Park, N.J.
Echols is driving the black 2021 Hellcat in the 10-second dash-cam clip that The Post got. He is trying to pass Gilberg’s black 2018 BMW X5 on the left. It all of a sudden goes to the right and hits the driver’s side of the Beemer. This sends Gilberg’s SUV flying over the fence.
“Upside down in a marshy area,” the victim said, the BMW came to rest. It took rescue workers an hour to cut Gilberg out of the flipped BMW, according to his lawyer.
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Police reports say he had spine surgery because of the crash, which broke his ribs and left him “no feeling or movement in both hands and his right leg.”
According to Gilberg, Echols “has a history” of driving recklessly and had a “remote-controlled license plate concealer” in the car. People often use these kinds of concealers to get around toll booths, speed cameras, and red light cameras.
A police report said that Echols had “four instances of speeding violation convictions,” with one for going 15 miles per hour over the limit and the other for going 20 miles per hour over the limit.
According to the claim, Gilberg was taken to Morristown Hospital Center after the crash and had two surgeries on his spine. By March 2023, he had nearly $1 million in hospital bills.
Leonardis says Echols has to pay Gilberg $1,200 a month as “restitution” until the $54,460 in “out of pocket” hospital bills for the victim are paid off.
Gilberg and his wife Cheryl are suing Echols, the Jets, the NJ Department of Transportation, and other groups, saying they were negligent and assaulted by a car. The lawsuit says that the DOT was “careless in the design and installation of curbs and guardrails.”
The lawsuit asks for damages that aren’t clear.
NFL teams picked up Echols in the sixth round of the 2021 draft and signed him to a 4-year, $3.6 million deal. He played college football at Kentucky. A year later, in 2024, he played in 14 games, made 18 stops, and returned an interception for a touchdown.