DWI Incident Killed Man In L.I.C.
A Long Island City man has been sentenced to five years in prison for striking and killing a 37-year-old bicyclist last June, law enforcement sources reported.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown identified the defendant as Alex J. Batista, 25, of Van Dam Street, who pled guilty on Feb. 24, to second-degree assault and operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin-Brandt.
The judge imposed last Wednesday, Mar. 13, the determinate sentence of five years in prison and three years’ post-release supervision. Batista was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and install an ignition interlock device at his own expense in any vehicle that he owns or operates for a period of three years following his release from prison.
“The case is another example of the terrible consequences that can result from mixing alcohol and driving a motor vehicle,” Brown said in a statement last Wednesday. “[Batista’s] actions clearly show that he is a threat to public safety, as well as to himself. The prison sentence meted out today is more than justified.”
According to the charges, Batista was driving a 2006 black Infinity M35 four-door sedan at a high rate of speed eastbound on Greenpoint Avenue at approximately 10:51 p.m. on July 18, 2012, when he struck the rear of 37-year-old Roger G. Hernandez’s bicycle as he rode eastbound with the flow of traffic on Greenpoint Avenue between 39th Place and 39th Street.
The collision caused Hernandez to be thrown onto the hood of Batista’s vehicle and strike the windshield before being thrown off the vehicle and onto the roadway near 39th Place. Hernandez was pronounced dead at the scene of massive head and body trauma approximately six minutes after the incident.
According to the criminal charges, Batista fled the scene in his vehicle, which was subsequently observed to be crashed into a building on Laurel Hill Boulevard in Woodside, approximately 10 blocks from the scene of the collision with Hernandez.
Batista was lying on the sidewalk a few car lengths from his vehicle in what appeared to be an intoxicated condition with bloodshot, watery eyes, slurred speech and an odor of alcohol and acting in an extremely belligerent manner.
At the time of Batista’s arrest, police recovered two bags of marijuana from his person.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Robert S. Ciesla of the District Attorney’s Homicide Investigations Bureau 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 John W. Kosinski, Vehicular Homicide Unit chief, 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.
