Belle Mead Pre-Med Student Offered Plea Deal in Fatal Car Crash

By Barbara A. Preston for The Montgomery News | November 9, 2026 1 pm

Siddartha P. Surapanani, an 18-year-old pre-medical student and emergency medical technician from Belle Mead, pleaded not guilty on Monday, Nov. 9, to a series of criminal charges stemming from a high-speed crash that killed a mother of two in July.

During the arraignment hearing in Somerset County Courthouse, prosecutors disclosed a plea offer that would require Surapanani to serve 20 years in state prison in exchange for pleading guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter and second-degree knowingly leaving the scene of an accident.

Belle Mead resident Siddartha P. Surapanani (in yellow) at Somerset County Courthouse with his attorney Michael B. Roberts.

Photo by Barbara A. Preston.

The plea offer is essentially 15 years (with 85% served before becoming eligible to parole) for the manslaughter charge plus five years for leaving the scene of a deadly accident, to be served consecutively, for a total of 20 years.

Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor John Ascione offered the plea deal during Surapanani’s arraignment hearing, in exchange for a guilty plea to two of his three charges.

The state’s offer is for Surapanani to plead guilty to counts 1 and 3 of the indictment. Count 1 is Aggravated Manslaughter with Extreme Indifference (1st degree) and Count 3 is Knowingly Leaving the Scene of a Motor Vehicle Accident resulting in Death (2nd degree).

Under the proposed terms, the state would dismiss a second-degree charge of reckless death by auto, substituting it with a motor vehicle summons for reckless driving. Also, Surapanani would have to pay any pocket expenses related to the discharge of Count 2. 

Superior Court Judge Peter Tober confirmed the parameters of the plea offer during the court proceeding. He scheduled a disposition conference for Jan. 4 to allow the defense time to review new medical records.

The arrainment hearing and plea offer follow an Oct. 22 indictment by a Somerset County grand jury. If convicted at trial on all three counts, Surapanani could face up to 50 years in state prison.

The Fatal Crash

Authorities alleged that on the morning of July 27, Surapanani drove erratically for roughly 15 miles along Route 202, starting near Flemington and ending in Raritan, where video cameras captured him in his vehicle running a red light at First Avenue and broadsiding an automobile driven by Deepa Sripathy, 44, of Bridgewater. Sripathy died from her injuries.

The fatal collision has drawn emotional turnouts at the courthouse, where members of Sripathy's family, including her husband, Ramakrishna, and her daughters, Harshitha, 20, and Samsmitha, 16, filled one side of the gallery alongside Surapanani’s relatives on the other side.

Defense attorney Michael B. Roberts has argued that his client, a Seton Hall University student and recent graduate of Montgomery High School, suffered a severe mental health crisis. During a September hearing, Roberts stated that Surapanani was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features and experienced a total loss of memory covering four days around the incident, which included four consecutive nights without sleep.

Prosecutors countered that Surapanani displayed conscious decision-making, citing statements in court documents indicating he consciously chose between hitting a gas station or colliding with traffic. While prosecutors noted a preliminary hospital toxicology screening detected THC in Surapanani's system, defense counsel emphasized that toxicology results remain unconfirmed.

Surapanani will remain in Morris County Jail while he awaits his next hearing.