News: LI Man Gets Tougher Sentence for Fatal Crash
(Long Island, N.Y.) The Suffolk County District Attorney requested that a judge give a twenty-eight-year-old Selden man a tougher sentence for his role in the car accident that killed two Long Island teens. The charges have been upgraded to criminal negligence homicide from aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. The man’s license had been revoked, he ran a red light, and was allegedly speeding at the time of the incident.
The man had faced prior charges for dealing drugs and had been arrested for possession of heroin. He was free on $25,000 bail after he was allegedly found with a hypodermic needle, brick of a hundred bags’ worth of heroin in his underwear, and fifty-three pills of a tranquilizer without a prescription. He faces nine years for the drug charges and four for his role in the death of the teens.
His license had been suspended after three misdemeanor speeding tickets were issued to him within an eighteen-month period. His original charge, a third-degree misdemeanor, was allegedly punishable with up to thirty days in jail. He was arraigned at the First District Court in Central Islip and handled by Fifth Squad Detectives when he pleaded not guilty to the offense.
Family members of the teens were outraged that the man was never tested for drugs and alcohol at the scene of the crash, despite having a prior drug record. They have since campaigned for automatic testing, especially in the case of a fatality. The seventeen-year-old Oakdale driver was pronounced dead that night, while the sixteen-year-old passenger from Sayville passed ten days later.
The teens were driving a BMW south on Ocean Avenue when they were struck by the man’s Dodge pick-up truck, which had been traveling westbound on Veterans Memorial Highway in Ronkonkoma. The sixteen-year-old was airlifted to Stony Brook University Medical Center and listed in critical condition while the driver was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore. Since their tragic deaths, the teens’ mothers were among those who pushed for the tougher sentence.
After news that the man would face a year in jail after striking a deal, students of Connetquot High School also protested the leniency of the charge. An estimated seventeen-hundred signatures were collected from an online petition in supporting tougher sentencing. Reports stated that a judge announced that a maximum sentence would be given if the man pleads guilty to the charges.
The accident, which occurred at roughly eleven-thirty at night, has prompted family members and loved ones of the teens to push for the introduction of stricter legislation. If the new bill is passed, it will be named “Eugene and Stephan’s Law” in honor of the teens. The bill is designed to make the owners of vehicles responsible for allowing unlicensed people to drive.
The bill also applies to drivers with suspended or revoked licenses and would be considered a Class A misdemeanor. It will make the vehicle’s owner responsible for any offense or damage committed by the driver. In addition, the vehicle owner would be charged a thousand dollar penalty.
