Brooklyn architect permanently disabled by runaway driver: ‘They took her life’

For the sister of a Brooklyn architect, permanently disabled by a Brooklyn hit-and-run, life has become an “endless nightmare” as she battles insurance companies and medical providers who are ready to give up on a woman.

Mimi Silver Liebenberg, 37, suffered severe brain damage in an Aug. 14 crash while crossing Pacific Street and Buffalo Avenue in Crown Heights.

Police sources said driver Clossy Spencer was looking for a parking spot when he rear-ended into Liebenberg, who was at a crosswalk.

CCTV footage recovered from nearby Kingsborough homes shows Spencer getting out of the car, looking at the seriously injured woman, and returning before heartlessly driving away.

“I just don’t get it,” Liebenberg’s sister Chrissy Richardson-Crief told the Daily News.

Liebenberg was rushed to a Kings County hospital immediately after the accident but was eventually transferred to an Atlanta rehab facility that specializes in traumatic brain injuries.

It was the second of four medical facilities that the Liebenberg family tried to get into.

“Our mother, who is 63, has been with my sister for the past five and a half months in all of these hospitals and brain injury centers,” said Richardson-Krief, 35. health too.”

Liebenberg can no longer speak, communicate or walk unaided, and her short-term memory is all but gone, her worried sister said.

The victim is currently in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, but because doctors determined that she would not recover beyond that point, obtaining insurance to cover inpatient care has become a full-time job for the Liebenberg family.

“They don’t see it as medically necessary, it’s their excuse,” Richardson-Creef said of the insurance companies. “She’s being treated like a human.”

Liebenberg was in a coma for seven weeks after the plane crash. When she came out of her “vegetative state” in late September, her sister said, she was annoyed by the slow progress of therapy.

“She couldn’t control her arms and legs and had to be restrained to keep from hurting herself,” Richardson-Creef said. “In her mind she thinks she speaks clearly, but what we hear is nonsense. She gets very upset.”

Liebenberg often forgets recent events and where she is.

“We have to tell her over and over that she was hit by a car,” Richardson-Crief said. “Every time she is again shocked and horrified.”

After going through a divorce, Liebenberg lived with a roommate before the accident. She was looking for an apartment the day Spencer, 29, hit her.

She was working as an architect at her “dream job” before she got injured.

“She went back to school and graduated,” Richardson-Crief said. “She loved her job and was great at it. She finally got there, and now she’s just going to be someone who should be on Medicaid, get state benefits, and be disabled.”

Liebenberg grew up in a small town in North Carolina.

“She loved being in New York,” said Richardson-Creef. “She loved art, music and energy. She was someone who cared about people and protected people who were underrepresented and misunderstood…now she can’t walk and can’t brush her teeth by herself.”

Liebenberg is expected to live out the rest of his life in his current state.

“It’s like she’s here, but she’s not there,” her sister said. “She has lost her dignity and independence, and there is nothing we can do to help her. Her life was stolen.”

A 911 caller provided detectives with a photo of Spencer’s car, but it took months to track him down. He was arrested on Wednesday and charged with assault, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident with bodily harm.

“I’m happy they arrested him and I hope the D.A. will prosecute him to the fullest extent permitted by law because it was the worst thing that ever happened to my family.”

After being charged in Brooklyn Criminal Court, he was held on $20,000 bail or $10,000 cash bail.

“She didn’t do anything wrong, she was just crossing the street,” Richardson-Creef said of her sister. “I want her life to matter because it matters to me, my kids and my poor mom.”