On April 11, 2025, our Partner, John LoTurco, secured a dismissal on behalf of our client who was charged with Driving While Intoxicated. The Honorable Mary Kate Mullen of the Suffolk County District Court granted our application for dismissal, and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office joined our application. Our client was charged with Driving While Intoxicated on August 5, 2023 following two separate car accidents, one involving personal injury to several passengers, and the other was property damage at the arrest scene. Our client vigorously denied that he was operating his landscaping company’s work truck, despite two eyewitnesses falsely identifying him at the scene as the operator of his landscaping truck. John LoTurco, with the invaluable assistance of his trusted paralegal, Gina Zamora, conducted a comprehensive investigation which including taking affidavits from numerous witnesses that supported our client’s claim that his employee was the actual driver of the landscaping truck. Our law firm presented an extensive written submission to the District Attorney’s Office, which included surveillance footage showing our client as a passenger in his friend’s vehicle, who was heading in the same direction as our client’s employee after a night of having numerous drinks at a local restaurant. The surveillance footage showed our client leaving the restaurant and entering his friend’s vehicle, and the employee entering the landscaping truck. Our client asserted that the reason he was not driving his own truck was because he was indeed intoxicated. Our submission to the District Attorney’s Office also included our client passing a polygraph exam.
Despite the compelling evidence, the District Attorney was initially unwilling to dismiss the charges, as they were relying on the two eyewitnesses identifications at the scene. The District Attorney argued that our surveillance footage was approximately 15 minutes before the accident, which left time for our client to switch vehicles and operate his landscaping truck. We successfully rebutted that after our client’s employee fled the scene on foot, our client shortly thereafter pulled up to the accident scene, exited his friend's vehicle, and was inspecting his landscaping truck when the eyewitnesses from the first accident arrived at the second accident scene, and falsely identified our client as the driver. As a result of the District Attorney’s initial unwillingness to dismiss the charges, the case was scheduled for trial. However, after the District Attorney’s Office’s Supervisors carefully reviewed the evidence, they consented to the dismissal. The dismissal was critical as our client avoided potential collateral deportation proceedings.
LoTurco was also able to secure a dismissal at the NYS Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Chemical Test Refusal Hearing after presenting the surveillance footage and numerous witnesses testifying that our client was not operating his landscaping truck at the time of the accidents. The successful DMV adjudication avoided our client having his license revoked for one year. Our client was ecstatic at the results obtained, and expressed his sincere appreciation for our zealous representation.