A former New York City police sergeant who killed a Peekskill man in a drunken wrong-way crash on the Taconic State Parkway has pleaded guilty.
Tiffany Howell, 48, pleaded guilty Wednesday, Aug. 19, in Westchester County Court to aggravated vehicular homicide and second-degree manslaughter after Judge Anne Bianchi promised her a 4 to 12 year prison term, about half the maximum she faced.
The crash forced Howell into early retirement in March after 18 years on the job.
What happened the night of Jan. 22?
Howell was treasurer of the Manhattan-Brooklyn-Staten Island chapter of the NYPD's Holy Name Society. That night she had helped host a "Holy Smoke" fundraiser with an open bar at Mom's Cigar Warehouse on Central Park Avenue in Greenburgh.
When she left in her 2021 Infiniti on her way
home to Warwick in Orange County she took the Sprain Brook Parkway north. That turned into the Taconic State Parkway but in Mount Pleasant she somehow got turned around and headed south in the northbound lanes.
Near Route 117 she smashed into Boitel’s 2024 Toyota. Her blood alcohol level was .0.26 percent, more than three times the legal limit for DWI.
Boitel was returning home from his job as a beloved doorman at a condo building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Because Howell was in law enforcement the prosecution was handled by the state Attorney General's Office.
She was indicted the following month and faced a prison term of up to 8 1/3 to 25 years.
'Crime of judgement'
Assistant Attorney General Sandra Roberts said Wednesday that their recommendation was a prison term of 6 to 18 years. She objected to Bianchi's lower promise, saying Howell made "several conscious decisions" that night, having multiple drinks knowing that she would be driving afterwards and then in fact driving away from the event in an intoxicated condition.
Boitel's sons, wife and more than a dozen other relatives and supporters were in court. Afterward the sons, Eric and Marvin, tearfully expressed their displeasure with the expected prison term and the devastation the entire family still feels.
"Four to 12 is not enough," Eric said. "She took a very great man from us."
Defense lawyer Andrew Quinn said Howell, "charitable, generous, kind," had lived an exemplary life until that night when she committed a "crime of judgement" not intent.
"This is so extraordinarily out of character," he said. "She's also dealing with a tremendous level of remorse knowing her actions caused the family to suffer extreme grief."
Also over the prosecution's objection, Bianchi allowed Howell to remain free on $250,000 bond to await sentencing, which the judge scheduled for Oct. 28.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Guilty plea for ex-NYPD Sgt. in drunken crash that killed Peekskill man
