Bradley Lohr parked along Elmwood Avenue last July intending to pick up his daughter Sydney, a 21-year-old college student, after she wrapped up a shift waiting tables at Cole’s restaurant.
Instead, Lohr experienced a father’s worst nightmare come true, witnessing an SUV barrel into his daughter as she tried to cross Elmwood, near Forest Avenue.
Sydney Lohr was rushed to Erie County Medical Center in an ambulance and died the next day from her injuries.
On Friday, more than eight months after the crash, Mohammed Tanbir, 26, of Buffalo, was arraigned in Buffalo City Court on felony charges related to heavily tinted windows on the 2023 BMW he was driving when he hit Lohr.
In New York State, it is illegal to drive a vehicle with a windshield or front side window that blocks more than 30% of light, although the Department of Motor Vehicles will grant exemptions for people with certain medical conditions that make it necessary, such as albinism, chronic actinic dermatitis and xeroderma. Applications for exemptions must include a signed physician’s statement.
In 2020, 2021 and 2022, Tanbir applied for and received a medical exemption from the DMV to use tinted windows, according to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors concluded that the tinted windows did not contribute to the deadly crash.
But they also found evidence that Tanbir had submitted falsified forms to the DMV.
Prosecutors accused him of intending to defraud by submitting forms stating he had a medical condition and falsifying a doctor’s signature on the forms.
Tanbir, who pleaded not guilty on Friday, could face as much as seven years in prison if convicted on three counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, which are felonies.
The Lohr family was “very thankful” for the efforts of the Buffalo police and the District Attorney’s Office in investigating the matter, said Michael T. O’Connor, an attorney who represents…
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