A 37-year-old driver whose passenger was killed when her disabled car was struck on the Baldwin Bridge in a four-car crash on Jan. 6, 2014 pleaded no contest last week to first-degree reckless endangerment.

Evelyn Rivera, of New Haven, received a fully suspended one-year prison sentence and one-year conditional discharge during an appearance Thursday in New London Superior Court.

Nydia Vargas, 58, of New Haven, who was in the front passenger seat of Rivera's 1995 Acura Integra, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 11:30 a.m. crash. The car, which was in the right center lane of the four-lane highway, was struck on the passenger side by a box truck, according to state police. After striking the Acura, police said the box truck hit a Ford Edge and the Acura was struck again by a Cadillac Seville.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, two troopers had stopped to help Rivera the previous night when her car was overheating as she and two passengers were driving to Mohegan Sun. One trooper reported he had given Rivera water for the car at 10:46 p.m., when it was disabled in the commuter parking lot at Exit 64 northbound. Another trooper had found the car disabled between exits 73 and 74 north and pushed the car off the highway to a nearby gas station at 12:11 a.m., according to the affidavit. The trooper had pointed to several hotels in the area where Rivera and her two passengers could stay, the affidavit said. One of the passengers, a cousin of Rivera, got a ride home, the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit, a mechanic at Cory's Auto Care in East Lyme had checked the car at 11 a.m. the next morning before Rivera, with Vargas in the passenger seat, attempted to drive home to New Haven. The mechanic told state police that he told Rivera the car needed a lot of work and that she said she didn't have the money. He said he added coolant and engine oil to car, and when she asked him whether it was safe to drive to New Haven, he said, "Probably not."

Rivera disputed that the mechanic had warned her not to drive the car.

In pleading no contest, she accepted a deal worked out between prosecutor Rafael I. Bustamante and defense attorney, Peter D. Catania.

"The deceased victim's family was in support of this plea offer as they did not want criminal prosecution and viewed the incident as an accident," said Victim Advocate LeeAnn Vertefeuille.

k.florin@theday.com