SOUTHOLD, Long Island, N.Y. — On July 18, 2015, four women died in a horrific collision when the limousine in which they rode was slammed into by a man driving a pickup truck. Police at the scene suspected the pickup truck driver was under the influence. However, the families of the women who died along […]
SOUTHOLD, Long Island, N.Y. — On July 18, 2015, four women died in a horrific collision when the limousine in which they rode was slammed into by a man driving a pickup truck. Police at the scene suspected the pickup truck driver was under the influence. However, the families of the women who died along with responding police officers claim that a local politician went to the scene of the crash and helped the pickup truck driver. According to an article in the New York Post, the pickup truck driver pleaded guilty to a traffic infraction that alleged impaired driving two years after the deadly crash. However, the families of the women who died said that without the help of that politician, the evidence of intoxication against the pickup truck driver would have been strong enough for a conviction for a much more egregious criminal charge.
According to pleadings filed by the victims’ families, the politician received a phone call from the truck driver and arrived at the accident scene a short time later. The police allowed the politician to enter the crime scene and look around. Meanwhile, the police gave the pickup truck driver a field sobriety test, which he subsequently failed. Additionally, the pickup truck driver attempted to run away from the scene of the crash. The police brought him back, but he never faced any charges for leaving the scene of an accident. The officer investigating the crash filed an affidavit in court stating that he had to chase the pickup driver on foot and bring him back to the scene. The victims’ families attribute the lack of charges for leaving the scene to favorable treatment obtained by the politician for his friend.
The prosecutors assigned to the case also complained about the delay between arrest and when the driver of the pickup took the breathalyzer test. The driver gave a test result of .066, which is below the legal limit of 0.08. Inexplicably, the pickup driver had numerous bottles of water before he took the test 100 minutes after the crash. The delay, coupled with water consumption, flushed the driver’s system and allowed him to give a lower reading and help avoid prosecution for DUI.