The New York Times ran a powerful investigative feature on March 12, 2026: “How a Driver in a Fatal Hit and Run Walked Free.”
The NYT piece underscores a core theme: a jury did its job and found guilt, but “jurors would not have the final word”—the pardon overrode it entirely.
NYT framed it as a stark example of accountability gaps, executive clemency overriding verdicts in fatal cases, and the lingering pain for grieving families when influence seems to tip the scales.
In Sept 2022, Harris Jacobs struck and killed 76-year-old Orlando Fraga-Seruti on Atlantic Ave while driving home after barhopping in Margate.
Jurors were told that Harris Jacobs was at a party where his friends testified to taking a shot of alcohol, before heading to Memories and Maynard’s.
Surveillance video captured Harris Jacobs stopping, parking, bending over the body twice, then driving away without calling for help.
Harris and his father Joe exchanged 10 phone calls, testimony showed, but neither one contacted police.
He was arrested approx 7 hours later after police traced the SUV via security cameras.
Harris Jacobs was driving a car registered to his father, Joe Jacobs, a Democratic power broker who had held prominent political jobs in Atlantic City and was a prodigious campaign fund-raiser.
A 2025 trial ended in a hung jury.
In the Jan 2026 retrial, a jury convicted him of second-degree knowingly leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
But that same day—around the time of the verdict—outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy issued a full pardon erasing the conviction and letting Jacobs walk free without any criminal penalty.
Drawing on trial testimony, surveillance footage, family interviews, and court records, NYT chronicles the victim’s family’s four-year struggle for justice, Jacobs’ post-crash calls to his influential father (prominent NJ attorney and political donor Joseph Jacobs), and prosecutors’ anger over how “political power and connections” appeared to influence the outcome.
William Reynolds, the Atlantic County prosecutor, reacted to the pardon: “Justice must be blind to status, relationships, power and expediency,” and warned that when justice fails to be blind to these factors, “the community loses faith in the very system meant to protect it”.
Full article (subscription may be needed): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/nyregion/new-jersey-pardon-phil-murphy.html
