See more of our coverage in your search results.
The family of a New York doorman killed by an NYPD officer in a drunken wrong-way collision raged at the former cop as she was sentenced to up to 12 years in prison — saying she “knows the damage that drunk driving causes a family” as a law officer.
“She has seen firsthand the devastation that actions can leave behind,” said Eric Boitel, whose 61-year-old father Manuel was killed in January by then-cop Tiffany Howell.
“She knows that one reckless decision can take someone’s life, tear a family apart and leave loved ones carrying pain for the rest of their lives,” Eric said in a Westchester County court Wednesday as Howell received her sentence, CBS News reported.
Howell, 48, was sentenced to between 4 and 12 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and second degree manslaughter in August — and begged forgiveness with a shaking voice as she learned her fate.
“I know that I made a terrible decision and I know that the consequences are irreversible,” she said, according to the New York Times.
“I know I shouldn’t have consumed alcohol and taken the wheel and I’m so incredibly sorry that I did,” she added.
The 18-year NYPD veteran’s blood alcohol was at least .18 — more than twice the legal limit — when she was driving on the wrong side of the Taconic State Parkway around midnight on Jan. 22, and slammed head-on into Manuel.
Boitel, who worked at an Upper East Side apartment building, was driving home to Peekskill after work when Howell — drunk after leaving an NYPD religious association event — drove south onto the northbound lanes in Westchester County and fatally hit him.
Photos from the scene showed their SUVs smashed up and nose to nose along the snow-covered Parkway median.
Howell’s was suspended and then quit the NYPD within weeks of the wreck, while her attorney characterized the incident as a “stark departure from the behavior and characteristics she’s displayed her entire life” after her arrest.
But Assistant Attorney General Allison Stuart said that mattered little to Boitel and his surviving family.
“She had no regard for his life, or of any other life for that matter, as she drove into oncoming traffic,” Stuart said during a bail hearing at the time.
And Judge Anne B. Bianchi echoed those comments during her sentencing Wednesday, calling Howell’s apology “superficial” and “self-serving.”
“This is the Boitel family’s nightmare. This is not your nightmare,” Bianchi said. “This is a situation you created and that you could have completely avoided.”
Howell faced up to 25 years in prison before her August plea.
Boitel, a married father of two, had long harbored dreams of joining the force himself.
“He was always the first to help others, often putting the needs of those around him before his own,” a fundraiser to help his family read, adding that Boitel’s death “left a huge void in our family.”
