Drunk driver gets up to 12 years for cop’s death in accident he wasn’t involved in
A Long Island man was sentenced to up to 12 years in prison
Wednesday for the DWI-related death of a Nassau County cop — even
though he wasn’t driving the car that killed the officer.
Police Officer Joseph Olivieri was responding to two crashes
caused by James Ryan’s drunken driving, jurors found in January, when
another driver slammed into Ryan’s car on the Long Island Expressway and
then fatally struck Olivieri.
”I want to say to the Olivieri family, words don’t express how
deeply sorry I am for your loss,” a choked-up Ryan told relatives of
the officer in the courtroom. “And the officer was a very great man and I
deeply regret he lost his life that night.”
Ryan’s teary-eyed parents sat behind him throughout the hour-long
hearing. Under sentencing guidelines, he’ll serve a minimum of five
years. The 29-year-old had faced up to 20 years in prison on the 10
counts on which he was convicted.
“James Ryan does deserve to be here,” said Assistant District
Attorney Maureen McCormick. “His refusal to accept any blame borders on
delusion.”
The case was closely watched by legal experts, who said it was rare
for someone other than the driver to be charged in a crash. The charges
were based on the legal principle of “causation/foreseeability,” in
which suspects are charged in events that are foreseeable results of
their actions.
In one such case from 1994, a New York City man was convicted of
murder in the death of an officer who had been chasing after him in a
robbery investigation and fell to his death through a skylight.
A jury found Ryan guilty of charges including aggravated criminally
negligent homicide, vehicular manslaughter, drunken driving and
reckless endangerment.
However, they acquitted him of the most serious charge — aggravated
vehicular homicide, which was initially tossed by a judge, who was later
overruled on appeal.
Ryan’s attorney said Wednesday he was filing notice to appeal the
conviction and would request the sentence be stayed. Called to the
scene, Olivieri was outside his patrol car talking with Ryan when an SUV
smashed into the Toyota and then fatally struck the cop. Prosecutors
said Ryan’s blood-alcohol level was 0.13, far higher the state’s
threshold of .08.
After a night of drinking in New York City, Ryan got behind the wheel
of his Toyota and crashed into a BMW on the Long Island Expressway, the
first in a chain of accidents. He then traveled almost another mile
down the road before stopping, where he was hit by another car.
During the trial, defense attorney Marc Gann argued the SUV driver
failed to avoid crashing into the wreckage from Ryan’s earlier accident.
