• 30
  • May
    2012

New York law enforcement officials yesterday blamed a car crash on a driver they said was drunk at the time. What made the crash newsworthy is that the 21-year-old driver's Mercedes-Benz crashed in one side of a house about 70 miles south of Newburgh and came out the other side.

Though the driver was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, she says the accident happened because of a mechanical malfunction, not because she'd had three drinks.

Her blood alcohol content was reported to have been tested with a Breathalyzer after the crash at 0.30 percent, which is more than three times New York's legal threshold of 0.08 percent.

According to a Suffolk County police report, the Brooklyn suspect smelled of alcohol after the crash in Bushwick.

She said she had had three Memorial Day beers before driving, according to reports.

At about 4:05 on Monday morning, the Mercedes hit one side of a 96-year-old Long Island woman's house, ran through a section of the house and rammed out the other side of the residence. No one inside the home was hurt in the crash.

The driver sustained abrasions and a gash to her face.

She pleaded not guilty to the charge of DWI in Suffolk County Criminal Court. Bail was set at $50,000, which the suspect apparently had difficulty making immediately.

Additional charges might be pending against the woman, according to reports.

She was said to have been driving the car of her boyfriend's father. Her boyfriend was in the passenger seat of the car at the time of the crash and emerged unhurt.

Source: nydailynews.com, "House-crash suspect had nearly 4 times legal limit for blood-alcohol content: prosecutors," May 29, 2012