Nearly a year after a high-speed crash in Leominster claimed the life of Emilia Ortiz, her boyfriend has been charged with motor vehicle manslaughter.
Gregory McNally, 35, was arraigned in Leominster District Court Monday and released on $50,000 cash bail.
A man who answered the door at his home had nothing to say Tuesday.
But police say McNally admitted to them that he got into an argument with Ortiz, who was 35, last July while driving her SUV down Johnny Appleseed Lane.
He allegedly told police he was “enraged” and “wanted to scare” her so he purposely “put the accelerator all the way down to the floorboard.”
Investigators say the SUV was going 86 miles per hour when it slammed into two trees and a fire hydrant.
They say McNally jerked the steering wheel to the left just prior to the crash, so the passenger side took the brunt of the impact.
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Ortiz, a mother of two teenagers, was killed instantly.
Court records show just one month earlier, McNally had crashed a pickup truck into a cement wall with Ortiz inside when she tried to break up with him
Ortiz filed a restraining order. But 10 days before the crash that would ultimately claim her life, she had the restraining order terminated.
Her father, Gus Lobos, was too distraught to speak on camera, but said his daughter was a nice, hard-working woman.
He said of McNally’s charges, “I don’t want him to do this to another woman. I will be glad to get him in jail, behind bars.”
McNally is due back in court on June 3.
