Orange County News

For Immediate Release                                                                           Contact: Christopher Borek
Friday, June 01, 2018                                                                         845.291.3276, 845.238.4245c

District Attorney Hoovler Announces Prison Sentence in 

Maybrook Automobile Homicide

Defendant, Knowing She Was Subject to Seizures,
Drove a Car and Killed Another Motorist

Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler announced that on Thursday, May 31, 2018, Leigh Carney, age 48, of Maybrook, was sentenced following her February 14, 2018, guilty plea in Orange County Court to Manslaughter in the Second Degree, in connection with the killing of another driver after Carney had a seizure while she was operating a motor vehicle. County Court Judge Robert H. Freehill sentenced Carney to a term of from three to nine years in prison.

On January 26, 2017, while driving a Mini Cooper in the area of Clark Place and Highland Avenue in the Village of Maybrook, Carney experienced a seizure. Her vehicle crossed over into oncoming traffic and collided with a car being operated by the deceased. The deceased was taken to Orange Regional Medical Center, where he died about a month later. Before the date of the collision, the Department of Motor Vehicles had suspended Carney’s driving privileges administratively, for a medical review due to her history of seizures. On July 17, 2017, an Orange County grand jury indicted Carney in connection with the collision, charging her with Manslaughter in the Second Degree, Criminally Negligent Homicide, Assault in the Second Degree, and two counts of Aggravated Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle in the Third Degree.

District Attorney Hoovler thanked the Village of Maybrook Police Department for their efforts in the investigation and prosecution of the case.

“All of us are entitled to be safe on the roads,” said District Attorney Hoovler, “and people who aren’t capable of safely operating a vehicle, for whatever reason, shouldn’t be getting behind the wheel. Certainly those with seizure disorders, whose privileges the State of New York has suspended because of those disorders, shouldn’t be putting the rest of us at risk by careless actions like those displayed by this defendant. The sentence handed down today cannot begin to compensate for the loss to the victim and his family, but maybe it can provide some measure of the justice that the law allows in situations like this.”

District Attorney Hoovler commended Senior Assistant District Attorney Kerry Kolek and Assistant District Attorney Eric Parker for their prosecution of the case.