Driver Indicted On Manslaughter In Tragic Death Of Police Officer. DWI In Two Counties:
Facing 22 Years In Prison, Granted Plea Deal. Served 2 Years
DWI Driver Sentenced In Suffolk Cop’s Death
By Carl MacGowan NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER
Clutching photos of her husband and their two children, a Bayport Widow called the drunken driver who killed Suffolk police Officer xxxxxxxxxx “a bona fide murderer”
xxxxxxxxxx’s dreams of retiring and taking his wife to California’s famed Redwood forests ended Feb. 22, 2009, when he died in a horrific crash in Commack, xxxxxxxxxx said at the driver’s sentencing in Suffolk County Court Friday.
She spoke shortly before Jose Borbon, 24, was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison. He had admitted he was drunk and talking on his cell phone when he smashed into xxxxxxxxxx’s police cruiser at
Vanderbilt Motor Parkway and Commack Road. xxxxxxxxxx, 45, of Bayport, was killed when the cruiser was shunted into a utility pole and exploded on impact.
Borbon, who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and aggravated driving while intoxicated, was sentenced under a plea agreement arranged in November by his attorney, William Petrillo of Rockville Centre, and State Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle.
“Now you’re a bona fide murderer, and in four years you will get out of prison,” xxxxxxxxxx said, reading from a statement at a courtroom lectern to Borbon, seated a few feet away. ”I’m looking at a life without him because you decided to drink and drive and murder.”
Minutes later, Borbon apologized to xxxxxxxxxx’s family and dozens of police who packed the third floor courtroom.
“I have cried at night knowing what you are going through,” said Borbon, dressed in a white shirt and gray tie. “I have tremendous respect for police officers and what they do every day.”
Prosecutors had said Borbon’s blood-alcohol content was 0.19 percent – more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 – when his vehicle struck xxxxxxxxxx’s cruiser. xxxxxxxxxx later expressed disappointment about the sentence. “Do I think that’s long enough? Absolutely not. But I will accept that,” she said outside the courtroom.
She and the couple’s children, xxxxxxxxxx, 23, and xxxxxxxxxx, 21, had asked Doyle for a stiffer sentence. Prosecutors had recommended 3 to 9 years behind bars.
Doyle called xxxxxxxxxx an outstanding police officer and added, “The sentence in this case does not in any way represent the measure of the man.”
The judge said the crash scene evidence would have made it difficult for prosecutors to prove that Borbon caused xxxxxxxxxx’s death. A reconstruction of the crash showed xxxxxxxxxx, responding to call, was driving above the speed limit and had his emergency lights and siren off when the vehicles collided.
Speaking afterward, chief trial prosecutor John Collins acknowledged Borbon could have been acquitted of vehicular manslaughter at trial. “I cannot quarrel with Judge Doyle’s decision,” Collins said.
Outside the courtroom, xxxxxxxxxx noted that when he struck her husband’s police car, Borbon had been free on bail after a DWI arrest six weeks earlier in Nassau County.
“Things have to change – DWI laws, No. 1,” she said. “Talk to [state] legislators. Laws have to change.