Drunken driver who hit cop on LIE gets 7 years
A Nassau police cruiser on the side of the Long Island Expressway was the least important thing that Rahiem Griffin destroyed when he slammed into it while driving drunk, the sister of the police officer severely hurt in the crash said Wednesday in court.
"You plowed directly into my brother's life that morning," said Danielle Rella, whose brother, Kenneth Baribault, 31, of Nesconset, has been severely brain damaged and partially paralyzed since the May 2008 crash. "The mangled metal represents what happened to his young and healthy brain. . . . The shattered glass signifies the utter destruction my brother's absence has caused to his son's life."
Rella, 24, of Fort Salonga, addressed Griffin minutes before Nassau County Judge Jerald Carter sentenced the Shirley man to 7 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed for second-degree reckless assault, drunken driving, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and other charges.
Griffin, 28, was returning home after a night out with friends in the Bronx when he crashed into Baribault's patrol car. Baribault had pulled over another suspected drunken driver on the side of the Long Island Expressway in Plainview.
Griffin's case spurred Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi a year ago to begin posting the names and photos of accused drunken drivers on the county's online "Wall of Shame." He has since amended the Wall to include only those who have been convicted, after a judge ordered him to stop posting names and photos of drivers who had not been convicted.
Griffin and his lawyer, Gerard Brogdon of Jamaica, did not dispute that Griffin had been driving drunk without a license at the time of the crash. But they held that he had not been reckless under the law.
In court Wednesday, Griffin looked over his shoulder twice to apologize to Baribault's sister and parents, who were sitting in the front row. He said he thinks often of the suffering that they have been through.
"It devastates me immensely . . . and I will carry it with me for the rest of my life," Griffin said, wiping away tears.
Carter said whatever sentence he imposed on Griffin, it would pale in comparison to the one Baribault is serving.
"Do I believe you are a criminal? No," Carter told Griffin. "But you did a very evil act."
Rella said she takes some comfort knowing that Griffin will be behind bars, much as her brother has been imprisoned in his own body.
"It is as if his brain was a filing cabinet and someone came along and dumped thousands of files all over the floor, leaving my brother to pick each one up, one by one, try to figure out what it is," she said.
The difference between Griffin and her brother, Rella said, is that Griffin now knows what his sentence is. Not knowing, she said, "is the biggest punishment here - and it's not happening to the person responsible - it's happening to the victim."
Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009
PBA In The News
Editorials
