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Almost a year ago, a drunk driver fatally struck a woman on Water Street in lower Manhattan. George Anderson, who was found to be drunk, was charged with vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident. Florence Cioffi, the victim, had been out with friends, and prosecutors had said Anderson was driving 60 MPH (the speed limit is 30 MPH). Now the Post reports that Anderson managed to get a break because Cioffi's blood alcohol content was apparently twice the legal limit. Anderson's lawyer said, "An intensive investigation by the defense and prosecutors revealed she probably stepped out from between two parked cars." Anderson, who could have faced up to 7 years in prison, will get "eight weekends in jail, do 200 hours of community service and pay a $350 fine" in his plea deal.
Prosecutor: Drunk Driver Hit Drunk Pedestrian
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Ugh, this is so unfair. Regardless of the victim being drunk, his actions (drunk, double the speed limit) should have been labeled intent to kill. The fact that he succeeded in his attempt should land him a life sentence.
yes, agreed he was drunk and behind the wheel and should be put in jail for at least 5 years. it seems they are faulting the victim when at least she was walking and not driving drunk. sickening.
It's a bad message, like, "If you're a drunk pedestrian, you're asking for it."
i always thought that if i wanted to kill someone the best way would be to runt hem over. case and point.
What judge accepted this plea deal? That's less punishment than he should have received for driving while drunk and doing 60 in a 30 zone! Maybe I never get picked for jury duty because the defense lawyers can read my mind.
Watch: the family of the murdered woman will go after the bar where she was drinking with a multi-million dollar civil suit, along with a charge of negligence & the owner & bartender will get hit worse than the scumbag who killed her!
What a legal system!
how can one be twice the legal limit when there's no legal limit for walking?
in other words, why should the standard applied to driving be a consideration for someone who isn't driving?
and twice the legal limit? 0.08 * 2 = 0.16. I know plenty of people who double that on at least a monthly basis, and they all walk straight enough not to be run over.
Maybe public intoxication, at most... but that isn't something that someone deserves to be murdered for.
who needs a gun anymore? buy up or steal cars to kill people.
If you have a few drinks and step onto the street afterwards you're fair game now it would seem.
This is a disgraceful decision. I wonder how the judge would feel if one of his family members was splattered across the road by some drunk at at 60 mph.
The driver should have been charged with murder.
i think the issue isn't that she was drunk, but that she may have stepped out from between two parked cars into the road.
he's going to jail because he was driving drunk, and that's good. he definitely bears a large part of the culpability for her death.
but as somebody who drives in the city, I myself hope i wouldn't be charged with murder if i accidentally hit a pedestrian who was jaywalking at night. especially uptown where i live, jaywalking is an epedemic, and new yorkers tend to wear black jackets, which makes it even harder to dodge jaywalkers after sundown.
I'm not saying this woman deserved to die, or it's not a tragedy, but let's tone down the rhetoric here about the city giving drivers carte blanche to run over drunks.
but he may have had the sense to stop or swerve out of the way when she stepped in the street had he not been clouded with intoxication. also, anyone driving in the city should know better than to drive 60 mph on city streets.
This is a morally murky case; Solomon himself would lose sleep over it. But regardless of how much of the blame lies on either the victim or the drunk driver...
can somebody explain why he gets 8 weekends instead of just 16 days straight in prison? that seems so bizarre to me.
Because he's rich enough to get a good lawyer.
Ok so let me get this straight. The guy that killed someone because he was drunk and speeding get a few weekends in jail, some community service and a $350 fine while the woman that obeyed the law by not driving and may have made a mistake by stepping out between two cars gets death. What a joke. Anyone that was involved with getting this guy that deal is evil. I bet if he was driving the speed limit the woman would still be alive today.
The Manhattan DA is too old and needs to get out. This case is an outrage. The message that I received is when drunk, don't walk but go behind the wheel. What an offensive sentence.
Walking while intoxicated doesn't recklessly endanger the lives of others. Unless, of course, you're the size of an SUV and can walk at 60 MPH.
if you stumble into the street while drunk and a driver swerves to avoid hitting you, you damn well just did endanger the lives of others
All the more reason to not drive drunk!
While I think his sentence is a bit light, the dead woman has culpability for jaywalking. While not often enforced, it is a violation of law to cross the street outside the crosswalks. That's why he had such limited liability.
... and so her punishment for jaywalking is death??
This is sickening. I hope the SUV asshole, his douchebag lawyer, and the dumbass judge all rot in hell for this morally corrupt decision.
gwinny,
sadly, yes. you can get killed jaywalking whether the driver is drunk and speeding or sober and doing the speed limit. nothing excuses this guy's behavior, but if she jaywalked, she did do something that contributed to her own death.
this is just one of those cases with no winners, and no real silver lining.
I think you might have misinterpreted my question... trust me, as a cyclist I am not a fan of jaywalkers and am fully aware of the risks they are taking. I was merely reacting to the previous commenter's implication that she got what was coming to her.
As disconcerting as this story is, I was really saddened to see that before the plea bargain, he was only going to get up to 7 years in prison for taking another person's life.
I know there was no intent, and I'm sure other punishment would have come by means of a civil suit, but still...7 years max? Seems a little light to me.
I don't understand how he's getting off so easy! Couldn't the prosecution argue that a sober driver would have been able to avoid the pedestrian even if said pedestrian was drunk and stumbling into the street? I'd like to think that I could brake in time, or at least swerve. Driving double the speed limit and drunk should be automatic long jail time, regardless of whether or not you kill someone, and even more regardless of whether the person killed was drunk. Acting like that shows a disregard for human life. What's it going to take, a sober teenager walking home from school to get killed for justice to be served? This is ridiculous...
What if this guy was like a serial killer, seeking out obviously drunk pedestrians to run over? He gets a slap on the wrist each time? Who agreed to this plea arrangement? Some prosecutors are little better than the jerks that commit crimes.
Is he losing is license too?
He should -- and there should be a clause in that plea agreement that says if he's found DWI anytime in the future, he can be prosecuted for this manslaughter.
These people never loose thier licences.
How many times has Gothamist posted stories about people being run dwon by drivers with either no licence at all, a suspended one or a licence recieved after being convicted of vehicular manslaughter.
I had a roomate with two DUIs on her record, as I foound out only after riding in a car with that idiot, and she never lost her privilage to drive.
In fact, two of her closest friends wouldn't get into a car with her because she actually continued to drive home from bars after four or five drinks. Scarry people out there.
I had a roommate in Florida who went to jail for 10 days after his 3rd DUI conviction. This was 20 years ago. He still has his licence and still drives . . . to and from his neighborhood watering hole.
i guess this asshole knew how the laws in this country work - that drunk driving, although one of the biggest problems, isn't punished the way it should be
IGNITION INTERLOCK !!
this technology exists ... how easy it would be for car manufacturers to put it in cars! so why not ?