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A former garbage truck driver who landed only a fine after fatally mowing down an Australian tourist near Central Park in 2018 may end up doing six years behind bars — for his work as a drug ring enforcer.
Ex-trash hauler-turned-narco henchman Felipe Chairez threatened to take a chainsaw to a New York man and rape his wife at the direction of Mexican drug traffickers, prosecutors allege.
Chairez was arrested by the feds over the threats in July 2019 — about a year after he struck and killed 23-year-old Australian tourist Madison Jane Lyden at West 67th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. Lyden had ridden her bike into his traffic lane to avoid an Uber that swerved into her bike lane.
Chairez had downed two beers before he got behind the wheel of his truck but was only slapped with a $1,000 fine in the case after pleading guilty to one count of operating a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol.
But the former garbage hauler is now facing some serious prison time in the drug case.
The US Probation Department requested that Chairez serve six years after he pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge in April. He is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday.
In a sentencing memo filed Thursday, prosecutors detailed the terrifying threats Chairez made to an unnamed man who was working as an informant against the unidentified drug organization, which sold “distribution-weight narcotics” in New York.
Under the feds’ direction, the informant arranged to buy 5 kilos of coke from the traffickers, which the authorities seized, according to prosecutors.
The drug dealers held the informant responsible — and sicced Chairez on him to recoup the money, according to court papers.
In July 2019, Chairez went to an auto body shop where the informant worked and stayed there for hours, waiting for him to show up, prosecutors charged.
While he waited, Chairez told the man’s co-workers he would bring a chainsaw to the shop and showed them photos he had of the informant’s family and friends.
He then called the informant and threatened that a high-ranking member of the drug organization would come to New York to collect the money from him.
“You don’t want him to come,” he allegedly wrote.
Chairez also texted the man photos of his family and threatened to sexually assault his wife if he didn’t pay up.
“Your wife is looking good, man. I will let you know [how] the p—y was,” he wrote in one of the messages, according to authorities.
“It’s on motherf–ker,” he added in another, the feds charged.
Soon after, the man arranged to give Chairez $5,000 at a Bronx restaurant, and authorities arrested the former trash hauler after the money changed hands.
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors noted Chairez was still dealing with the fallout from Lyden’s death when he made the threats.
“Approximately nine months later, the defendant was working as a debt collector and enforcer for a [drug trafficking organization], threatening to bring a chainsaw to his victim’s place of work and rape his wife,” Assistant US Attorney Benjamin Schrier wrote in the sentencing memo.
“Less than a year before he started working for the DTO, the defendant had what should have been a course-correcting collision with the criminal justice system. And yet, after being prosecuted in connection with the death of another person, the defendant’s criminal conduct got even worse,” Schrier added.
Chairez’s lawyer, Alexei Schacht, told The Post in a statement Friday, “My client deeply regrets his past conduct that was caused by his alcoholism.
“And he has been working full time since his arrest in this case to rehabilitate himself and to make amends for his conduct.”
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