A license plate that fell off a car during a hit-and-run collision led police to the driver of Tesla that struck and killed well-known Brooklyn wine steward Alexandra Huggins as she was riding her bike in East Williamsburg, officials said Wednesday.
“She was an amazing person,” the victim’s heartbroken mother, June Huggins, told the Daily News.
”She had a lot of amazing friends. She loved her life in New York and had no plans to leave. She was way too young to die. She was extraordinary, beautiful and bright and just so happy with life.”
Six weeks after the 32-year-old Huggins was hit on Sept. 27, police said they tracked down and arrested Luis Machado by using the fallen plate and video surveillance to tie him to the crash. Machado, 33, was charged with leaving the scene of an accident during which his 2026 blue Tesla, heading west on Meserole St., struck Huggins, who was heading south on Leonard Street as the two approached the intersection around 2:30 a.m.
Huggins was knocked off her bike into two parked cars before landing on the asphalt where cops found her on the street with serious injuries. EMS transported Huggins to Woodhull Hospital, where she died a short time later. Cops said Machado had the green light while Huggins, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, ran a red light.
The front plate of the Tesla was knocked off by the collision which helped cops track him down, police sources said. Machado fled after the collision. His car was seized by police in Medford, NY where he lived, police said. Machado was released following his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court. He is due back in court on Jan. 9
Sources said four violations were associated with the car in 2025 all for speeding, one in Manhattan and three in Brooklyn, though it was not clear who was driving at the time.
According to Huggins’ mother, the promising wine steward took a winding career path.
Huggins grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee before moving to Florida when she was 10-years-old with her family. After studying English and film at the University of Florida, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in film before pivoting toward a career as a sommelier, or wine steward.
“She had come to New York thinking she was going to enter film. She had to supplement her income waiting tables, as everybody has to do, and her father and I have always been really interested in wine, she came to really love it. She took some courses and was becoming a well-known figure in the wine industry. We had a number of distributors at the funeral,” June Huggins said.
A charity fundraising memorial page described how Huggins fell in love with her Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The building where she lives, sits near several community gardens. In the weeks since Huggins’ death, her family and the building’s owner worked together to establish a tribute fund to raise money for the gardens.
“Allie Huggins found her place in this world in Brooklyn, putting down roots on Vernon Avenue in Bed-Stuy,” the tribute reads. “This Fund connects Allie’s spirit to the gardens she loved through support for Bed-Stuy community garden projects.”
Huggins worked as a chief sommelier for the Oberon Group, a collection of restaurants and wine bars as well as working as the general manager and beverage director at Anais, a wine bar in Cobble Hill.
Huggins’ work allowed her to frequently travel, previously returning from France, a few weeks prior to the fatal collision.
“She picked the grapes, she tread the grapes. I know from her that it was really, amazingly fun and she learned an awful lot about the production. It’s one thing to know the book learning, it’s another to participate. She was constantly educating herself.” June Huggins said.
A ghost bike to honor Alexandra was set to be placed on Sunday at the location where she was killed, the mother said.
