Max Sentence For Killing Maspeth Bar Owner
A Bushwick man whose reckless driving on the Long Island Expressway resulted in the October 2011 death of a Maspeth bar owner will serve the maximum sentence allowed by law, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced on Monday, May 7.
Peter Rodriguez, 37, of DeSales Place pled guilty last month to criminally negligent homicide and a felony violation of leaving the scene of an accident without reporting. Act- ing Queens Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin-Brandt sentenced him to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison, the most the law allows.
“Today’s sentence-which is the maximum allowed under the law-is a measure of justice for the victim and his family,” District Attorney Brown said in a Monday statement. “The defendant is being held accountable for his actions and his guilty plea and the sentence imposed are appropriate based on the provable facts of the case.”
According to the criminal charges, Rodriguez was driving a 2002 gray Chrysler Sebring westbound at approximately 6:50 a.m. on Oct. 15, 2011, at a speed in excess of the posted 30 miles per hour limit in the eastbound lanes of the Midtown Expressway when he collided with a livery cab, a 2003 black Lincoln Town Car traveling eastbound near 58th Road.
As a result of the crash, George Gibbons, 37, who was sitting in the rear seat of the Town Car, was thrown forward into the front seat and into the dashboard. Gibbons, who was the owner of The Gibbons’ Home in Maspeth, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was later pronounced dead from multiple blunt force injuries to the head, neck and chest.
The livery car’s 59-year-old driver also sustained severe head, neck and back injuries which required hospitalization.
A 44-year-old man who had been riding in the 2002 Chrysler with Rodriguez was also injured. He and Rodriguez fled the scene, but the passenger later returned and was hospitalized for injuries to his head.
The case sparked a manhunt in which posters of Rodriguez were plastered throughout the neighborhood and in locations as far away as Greenpoint. Local lawmakers and businesses offered a $10,000 reward for any information leading to Rodriguez’s arrest.
Rodriguez was eventually apprehended on Nov. 15, 2011 at a location in Connecticut by the U.S. Marshals New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force following an anonymous tip to the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline.
In response to the crime, City Council Members Elizabeth Crowley- one of the lawmakers who contributed to the reward-and Peter Vallone Jr. announced their support for proposed legislation that would impose stiffer penalties on criminals who leave the scene of an accident.
The bill, S.2918, would increase the penalty for leaving the scene of an accident when a death occurs from a class D felony to a class C felony, which is punishable by seven to 15 years in prison. State law currently only enforces a maximum sentence of seven years for this crime.
“The law needs to be strengthened to penalize those who break it, but right now our system fails to adequately hold criminally negligent drivers accountable for their actions,” Crowley said in a statement. “I will continue to work with the Gibbons family and the Maspeth community to call on the state Assembly to pass and Governor [Andrew] Cuomo to sign this important bill.”
The lawmakers held a rally on the steps of the Queens Criminal Courthouse in Kew Gardens prior to the sentencing.
Meanwhile, members of the Gibbons family reopened The Gibbons Home pub, located at 54-12 69th St., on Feb. 25.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Robert S. Ciesla, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Investigations Bureau, and Assistant District Attorney John W. Kosinski, chief of the District Attorney’s Vehicular Homicide Unit, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter T. Reese, bureau chief, and Peter J. McCormack III and Richard B. Schaeffer, deputy bureau chiefs, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.
