Hit-run kills hedge exec

A young Manhattan hedge-fund executive was knocked off his motorcycle and killed Sunday by an unlicensed hit-and-run driver, police said yesterday.

Ronen Katz, 27, was riding his red 2009 Ducati north on West Street when he was clipped by a Nissan heading east on Canal Street at around 5 p.m. Cops said the driver, Naisha Sutton, 25, of The Bronx, was making an illegal left turn. Officials said she fled the scene, but later turned herself in at Brooklyn's 75th Precinct station house.

Katz, who lived in the East Village, was a vice president at the Manhattan investment firm Angelo, Gordon & Co.

"I walked from Third Avenue and saw two rabbis standing in front of his apartment, and the motorcycle was gone," said Katz's mother, Leora. "I knew he was in an accident."

Sutton was charged with leaving the scene, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, and making an improper left turn. Prosecutors said she was driving with only a learner's permit. She was held in lieu of $5,000 cash bail.

Sutton's lawyer, Howard Simmons, said the driver, whose 22-month-

old baby was in the back seat, was heading to Brooklyn, and "panicked" after the accident.

"She got out of her car and told someone to call 911," Simmons said. "The baby was hysterically crying, and in a panic state, she drove away."

Relatives described Katz, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with three degrees, including two in engineering, as brilliant.

"I don't think there's a brother like him anywhere," said Katz's teary-eyed sister Tamar, an Israeli figure-skating champion. "He just helped me move into my dorm two weeks ago. He was so proud I got into Penn."