A 72-year-old man who previously insisted he “did nothing wrong” after fatally striking former Nickelodeon star Kianna Underwood in Brooklyn has been arrested months after the alleged hit-and-run.
Michael Griffiths was taken into custody Tuesday and charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and leaving the scene of an accident involving injury, the NYPD said.
The arrest came eight months after Underwood, 33, was hit by two vehicles in Brownsville at about 6:50 a.m. on Jan. 16.
Surveillance video obtained by The Post showed Underwood crossing against the traffic signal at Watkins Street and Pitkin Avenue as a Ford SUV crossed the double yellow line to pass a stopped vehicle.
The SUV struck Underwood in the crosswalk, throwing her across the intersection.
The former child actress was then run over by a second black-and-gray sedan, which dragged her “several hundred feet,” a police source told The Post at the time.
Police and sources said Underwood was found suffering from severe trauma at Osborn Street and Pitkin Avenue. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
In an interview with the New York Daily News in late January, Griffiths said he remembered hitting “something” with his 2021 black Ford Explorer but maintained that he “did nothing wrong.”
“At the time it was a little bit darkish. I was going to work…It felt like I hit something, and I pulled over and stopped,” he told the publication.
Griffiths said he stopped after striking Underwood and watched as another vehicle hit her and began dragging her.
He told the newspaper that he exited his SUV and joined other bystanders in trying to flag down the second vehicle, but the driver fled.
Griffiths said he then left to take his medication because he “felt like I was going to faint when the incident happened,” according to the Daily News.
The elderly driver also said police impounded his vehicle. Records show the SUV had received 41 violations, including 25 speeding tickets.
Underwood appeared in the final season of the popular children’s sketch-comedy series “All That” in 2005. In recent years, she had experienced homelessness and was frequently seen on the Brownsville streets where she was killed.
