August 29, 2008
Limo crash jurors may be called back
An unusual effort to bring jurors in the Martin Heidgen drunken driving case back to court to discuss how they arrived at their guilty verdict moved forward Tuesday as prosecutors agreed that a hearing on the issue should be held.
The Nassau district attorney's office said a judge in last year's murder trial should hold a hearing to learn whether jurors improperly discussed information about Heidgen's driving record during their deliberations.
Heidgen, 25, of Valley Stream, was convicted of second-degree murder in October for driving drunk the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway in July 2005, and smashing into a limousine as it returned from a wedding in Bayville. Killed in the crash were the driver, Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale, and Katie Flynn, 7, of Long Beach, who had been a flower girl in her aunt's wedding.
Assistant District Attorney Bob Hayden, one of the prosecutors who tried Heidgen's murder case, said in court papers filed Tuesday that a defense motion to throw out Heidgen's guilty verdict based on jury misconduct is meritless.
However, he said that a hearing may be warranted on a single issue -- whether one juror told the others, wrongly, that Heidgen had been convicted of drunken driving in college.
"Although there is overwhelming reason to doubt the accuracy of the factual underpinnings of this claim, a hearing should be conducted," Hayden said in his written response.
Acting State Supreme Court Judge Alan Honorof must decide if he'll grant a hearing on the jury misconduct issues raised by Heidgen's lawyer, Stephen LaMagna of Garden City.
In his motion, LaMagna said one juror, Michele Vargas, told other jurors Heidgen had a prior drunken driving conviction, even though nothing about Heidgen's record was admitted as evidence in the trial. In fact, he had been arrested for drunken driving, but the charges were later dismissed.
In his motion, LaMagna also raised a number of other allegations, including that jurors improperly discussed what Heidgen's sentence would be if he were convicted, that two jurors met in a supermarket to discuss the case and that one juror said she planned to write a book after the verdict.
"I think it's important under these circumstances to ascertain how the jury arrived at its verdict," LaMagna said Tuesday.
Hayden said in his papers that he had interviewed several jurors and found LaMagna's allegations to be unfounded. He said all the jurors he spoke to, except one, denied that the issue of a prior conviction had even been raised. And even the one juror who raised the allegation, forewoman Loy Malcolm, backed off on several important points when he questioned her about them in detail, Hayden said.
Keith Rabinowitz, Stanley's son, said even if there is a hearing, he is certain it will come to nothing.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
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