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Posted: Wednesday, 14 May 2008 9:08PM

DWI Defendants Face Fates in NYC Officers' Deaths

NEW YORK (AP)  -- One drunken driving defendant was convicted and another was sentenced to prison Wednesday in connection with two separate crashes that killed off-duty police officers on motorcycles.

A state Supreme Court jury deliberated a little more than an hour before finding Robert Derian, 25, guilty of manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving in the death of Officer Eric Concepcion.

Derian, a volunteer firefighter who lived with his parents in Saddle River, N.J., faces up to 15 years in prison at his sentencing, set for May 28. Justice Bonnie Wittner revoked Derian's bail and ordered him jailed.

Prosecutors accused Derian of chasing Concepcion, running him down and dragging him to his death with his Jeep Cherokee SUV on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan shortly after midnight on Aug. 14, 2006.

Assistant District Attorney John Wolfstaetter, displaying photos of the victim's torn and bloody body during his summation, said the crash was deliberate. Concepcion had done ``something to tick Mr. Derian off,'' he said.

The prosecutor said Derian had a blood alcohol level of .12 percent, 50 percent more than the legal limit, when arrested. He said that reading was taken from Derian more than two hours after the crash.

Derian's attorney, Ricardo J. Rodriguez, said in closing arguments that his client was not drunk after having only two drinks, and that the crash was ``a tragic accident.'' The lawyer also accused police witnesses of exaggerating, or in some cases lying outright, because the fatal crash involved one of their own.

Concepcion was a married father of two and a six-year police veteran assigned to the Yankee Stadium detail.

In another courtroom, Kevin Casado was sentenced to two to six years in prison after pleading guilty in March to vehicular manslaughter.

Casado, 33, admitted he had ``recklessly'' killed Officer Alexander Felix, 31, while driving drunk in a minivan in Upper Manhattan around 1 a.m. on July 2, 2007.

Prosecutors said Casado's blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit when he plowed into the officer's idling motorcycle in Manhattan's Inwood section.

``I am very, very sorry for this tragic accident,'' Casado, an apartment building doorman, told state Supreme Court Justice Bruce Allen before sentencing. ``There are no words to describe what I'm going through. I'm very sorry.''

Felix worked street-level anti-drug details in the 30th Precinct.


(TM & Copyright 2008 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO & EYE Logo TM & Copyright 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors.)
 
 
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