A 27-year-old man was taken into custody after he was observed driving erratically on Post Avenue in Nassau County at about 11:18 p.m. on July 17. The man was driving a 2001 Honda, and police say that there was a 3-week-old baby in an unrestrained child seat at the time.
The man is facing several charges including aggravated DWI under Leandra’s Law and endangering the welfare of a child. He is also charged with driving while intoxicated in addition to a variety of other traffic offenses. Authorities say that the man had a scheduled court appearance scheduled for July 18.
In the state of New York, it is an automatic felony if a conviction is obtained on a first offense to drive with a BAC of .08 or higher when there is a passenger in the vehicle who is 15 years old or younger. The law is named after an 11-year-old girl who was killed when her friend’s mother who was driving while impaired lost control of her vehicle and flipped it over.
A conviction on DWI charges can result in serious penalties, including incarceration and heavy fines. Administrative sanctions could include the loss of driving privileges. As a result, it may be advisable for those who are facing these charges to obtain the assistance of a criminal defense attorney as soon as possible so that a strategy to combat them can be developed. One possibility could be to challenge the initial traffic stop that led to the arrest as being conducted without the required probable cause. Another could be to assert that the breath test machine was improperly calibrated.
