by Andy Newman, The New York Times
The former police officer who struck a pregnant woman and her family with his minivan after drinking beer for an entire day in Brooklyn last year was convicted yesterday of the most serious charges he faced - four counts of second-degree manslaughter. The former officer, Joseph Gray, 41, faces up to 15 years in prison.
Mr. Gray sat expressionless as the jury delivered its verdict after less than three hours of deliberation, while friends and relatives of the victims pumped their fists quietly in the back row of the courtroom.
Mr. Gray’s lawyer had argued that he was guilty only of drunken driving, not of recklessly causing the deaths of Maria Herrera, 24; her son Andy, 4; her sister Dilcia Pena, 16; and Mrs. Herrera’s unborn son, who died hours after being delivered by Caesarean section.
The jury could have convicted Mr. Gray of lesser charges of vehicular manslaughter or negligent homicide for the accident, which happened in the shadow of the Gowanus Expressway in Sunset Park, just after dark on Aug. 4.
But Mrs. Herrera’s husband, Victor Herrera, 26, said that the strong verdict gave him little solace. “Justice has been done,” he said. “But my life has been destroyed by this man. I have nobody.”
Mr. Gray will be sentenced on May 23 by Justice Anne G. Feldman of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.
The case, which involved a drinking bout after work in the station house parking lot by Mr. Gray and several other officers, including a sergeant, before the accident, and apparent attempts by Mr. Gray’s colleagues in the 72nd Precinct to give him special treatment afterward, sent a convulsion through the department and set off bitter protests in Sunset Park, a working-class, mostly Hispanic neighborhood.
Seventeen officers in the 72nd Precinct, including the commander, the executive officer and a lieutenant were disciplined after the accident. This week, the department said it was considering harsher discipline for officers who drink and drive. And several officers involved in the case now face criminal investigations, including the officer in charge of testing Mr. Gray’s blood-alcohol level, who testified that he and police union officials discussed which sobriety test Mr. Gray was mostly likely to pass.
Mr. Gray’s lawyer, Harold Levy, said his client would appeal the verdict.
The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said: “We believe justice was served. This was a terrible tragedy, and our hearts go out to the family.”
Around 9 p.m. on Aug. 4, Mrs. Herrera and her family were returning home after spending the afternoon shopping. They crossed Third Avenue, a busy thoroughfare that runs past warehouses, hand in hand.
At that moment, Officer Gray was behind the wheel of his burgundy Ford Windstar minivan, driving along Third Avenue before returning to work the night tour again.
Mr. Gray, a 15-year police veteran, had not been to sleep yet, 13 hours after finishing his previous midnight-to-8 a.m. shift. Instead, he had spent several hours drinking in the station house parking lot and continued to drink at the Wild Wild West Club, a nearby topless bar.
By 8 p.m., Mr. Gray had consumed 12 to 18 beers. His blood alcohol level an hour later was estimated by the prosecution’s expert witness at 0.23 percent, more than double the legal threshold for intoxication. He ran a red light at 46th Street going at least 15 miles per hour over the 30 m.p.h. speed limit, prosecutors said.
Mr. Gray hit the family. Bodies flew up in the air. An instant later, Mrs. Herrera, an outgoing immigrant from the Dominican Repubulic who liked to draw and was 8 1/2 months pregnant with her second child, lay still on the pavement beside her little sister, a high school student who was working in an envelope factory for the summer. Mrs. Herrera’s son, Andy, lay trapped beneath the van.
While waiting for paramedics to arrive, Mr. Gray told a witness, Freddy Roman, “Come on, man, we all have a few beers once in a while.”
Mr. Gray was taken into custody. But according to testimony at the trial, he was not treated like an average drunken-driving suspect.
The officer in charge of the blood alcohol test, Martin Finkelstein, said he and union officials tried to figure out which test Mr. Gray could “beat,” and added, “My intention was to give the subject a benefit.” An investigating officer said he did not ask Mr. Gray during an interview whether he had been drinking. The arresting officer said he had let Mr. Gray sit in a squad car and a detention room without ever putting him in handcuffs.
After the verdict, Mr. Levy asked Justice Feldman to continue Mr. Gray’s bail so that he could take care of family business. Mr. Gray’s wife, Diana, sat in the second row, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. But the judge replied that it would be “the better part of decorum” to remand Mr. Gray to jail. At that, Mr. Gray, without being told, put his hands behind his back to receive handcuffs and was led off to the Brooklyn House of Detention.
Mr. Levy said Mr. Gray was not surprised by the outcome.
Other relatives of Mrs. Herrera in the courtroom included her mother, Maria Altagracia Pena Hernandez.
Mr. Herrera, surrounded by cameras and microphones in front of the courthouse, was asked whether he found any comfort in seeing Mr. Gray finally led off in cuffs.
“Those handcuffs were supposed to be there nine months ago,” he replied bitterly. “My wife is going to be dead nine months tomorrow, the 4th. He was supposed to be in jail nine months ago, not today.”