Community Corner

Driver Charged in Death of Bloomfield Teen

Driver of Camaro that crashed into Honda, killing beloved Bloomfield High School junior, also hit with aggravated assault by auto charge

A Bloomfield man has been charged with vehicular homicide in the death of 16-year-old Christina Lembo, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office announced Thursday.

Nicholas M. Camasco, 23, was the driver of a 2000 Chevy Camaro, who was sitting in the backseat of the Civic. She was pronounced dead at University Hospital in Newark a short time later.

Both cars had been traveling on Broughton Avenue in Bloomfield at the time.

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Four others – two occupants in the Civic and two in the Camaro – sustained non-life threatening injuries.

Camasco was also charged with aggravated assault by auto. He turned himself in Thursday and is being held at the Essex County Correctional Facility on $100,000 bail set by Judge Peter J. Vazquez.

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"As the investigation progressed, facts were developed that warranted the filing of charges," said Chief Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly in a press release.

The case will be heard before a grand jury and an investigation remains active and ongoing.

The arrest comes nearly one week after Lembo, a junior at Bloomfield High School and well-liked varsity soccer player, was laid to rest in a tearful funeral mass attended by nearly 1,000 people. Her death has rocked the entire Bloomfield community, which held a moving candlelight vigil in her honor just a day after the fatal accident.


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