Daughter of Lynn victim speaks out

LYNN – Yulia Levin cried Tuesday as she recalled the six days in January she spent by her late mother’s bedside as Luyiza Polak, 68, lay dying from injures sustained when a hit-and-run driver struck her on Lynnfield Street.”She didn’t look anything like herself,” Levin, a Salem resident, said as she called on the driver of what police described as “a dark colored, newer model, SUV-type vehicle with a rounded shape” to surrender to police.”I understand things can happen, but to leave someone to die, I don’t know how they can live with themselves,” she said.Polak, 68, a Vamp Building resident, was struck as she crossed Lynnfield Street in front of Union Hospital at 5 p.m. on Jan. 11 after getting off a bus. She was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she died on Jan. 17.”We went to the hospital every single day,” Levin said.Levin said her mother had made plans to visit her own mother at Union Hospital on Jan. 11, where the 90-year-old was recovering from hip surgery. Polak’s sister planned to meet Polak at the hospital and, when she did not arrive, Levin said her aunt speculated that heavy traffic had delayed her.”At about 5:30 p.m. my grandmother sent her (Levin’s aunt) outside to see if the bus was late. She saw all the police and one of them told her that my mother (Polak) had been taken to Mass General,” Levin said.Levin said her mother’s life revolved around her family, including Levin’s two young sons.She frequently visited Levin and her family at their home so that they would not have to make the trip to Lynn.Polak typically arranged rides with other people and only occasionally took the bus.Polak and Levin – her only child – followed other family members out of the Ukraine to the United States in 2003.”We were looking for a better life like everyone else,” Levin said.Although she worked as a professor in her homeland, physical problems including hearing loss forced Polak to stop working after she came to the United States, Levin said.Lynn police recently set up an electronic sign on Lynnfield Street near Tuscan Road to remind drivers about the incident and to urge them to come forward if they have any information.”We’re convinced that, at that time of day, when the road was heavily traveled, someone saw something,” Police Lt. Christopher Kelly said Tuesday.Anyone with information can call police at 781-595-2000 or they can text an anonymous tip to Lynn Police by texting “tiplynn” and the tip information to tip411. Anonymous web tips can also be submitted right from the Police Department’s website at www.lynnpolice.org by clicking the submit tip icon, according to the release.Levin said the arrest last week of a Saugus woman in connection with a 2010 fatal hit-and-run accident in that town gives her some hope that the driver who hit her mother will surrender or will be captured by police.”It would bring us some sort of closure. It would be comforting to know that the person who did that got what they deserved. That person just left. They didn’t even try,” she said.Steffany Barbanti, 24, 10 Cedar Glen Circle, pleaded innocent on Monday to leaving the scene of an accident of personal injury and death in connection with Christos Agganis’ death.Saugus residents Michael Pulicari and Bobby Imperato were surprised Tuesday to learn that police charged a local woman with Agganis’ death on Jan. 28, 2010.”I thought if it was someone from the town they would have come forward just because of who he (Agganis) was,” Imperato said.Janet Cosgrove of Saugus described Agganis, 81, as a popular local senior who liked to spend time with his friends in the Hammersmith Restaurant opposite his Central Street home.Town resident John Dalbenzio, a Hammersmith regular, also remembered Agganis and said persistence on the part of police investigators helped them crack the 2-year-old case.Cosgrove thinks Barbanti “should pay her dues” if she is convicted in connection with Agganis’ death, but she added: “She needs some kind of therapy.”Pulc