A New York woman, Sarah Espinosa, 22, has been arrested for a rather odd offense after crashing her car while under the influence. That is unfortunately not particularly uncommon but she crashed her Prius into a firehouse while wearing a giant python around her neck. Beyond that curiosity, there is one aspect of her case that raises a question about redundant charging by prosecutors.
Espinosa is charged with stealing the snake from a local Petco and then later driving across a median, hitting another car, and then crashing into the New Hyde Park Fire House. In so doing, she damaged the garage and two engines.
She is charged with reckless endangerment, drug possession, DWI, petit larceny and reckless driving. My question is the redundancy of charging both reckless driving and reckless endangerment. The first would seem to subsume the second charge.
Here are two of the serious reckless endangerment provisions:
A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the second degree when he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person.
Reckless endangerment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.
A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the first degree when, under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person.
Reckless endangerment in the first degree is a class D felony.
Now here is the reckless driving provision:
1212. Reckless driving. Reckless driving shall mean driving or using any motor vehicle, motorcycle or any other vehicle propelled by any power other than muscular power or any appliance or accessory thereof in a manner which unreasonably interferes with the free and proper use of the public highway, or unreasonably endangers users of the public highway. Reckless driving is prohibited. Every person violating this provision shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Notably, this is a misdemeanor as opposed to the second endangerment provision that can be a felony. On top of that, she is also charged with Driving While Intoxicated. There seems considerable overlap and a degree of redundancy in such charges.
I would expect a plea on the case given the limited available defenses. Indeed, count stacking like this is often a way of forcing pleas. They are unlikely to drop the larceny charge but they can drop either the reckless driving or endangerment charges. There is also likely considerable financial damage to be folded into any plea agreement for the repair of the firehouse and the engines.
Stripper?
A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the second degree when he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. So when it happens Turley, and it will, should Trump be held on such charges?
Next time try a Feather Boa!!!
cut off the head of the snake. deny taxes to the corrupt federal regime which is owned by billionaires
no taxes, debt default, the end of their rackets
https://www.warresisters.org/war-tax-resistance-organizations
#taxprotest2020
#taxresistance2020
#fightbillionaires
Saloth Sar
If they’re trying to squeeze the fight out of her it would seem the python beat them to the punch
JT, Give it up unless you can help educate your fan club. Get back to helping your students!
It’s obvious she was trying to outdo the proverbial “Florida men.”
The quality of the posts here is consistently low.
Is it possible that the python was attacking her which made her lose control of her vehicle?
Darwin Award honorable mention.
No relation to Darwin’s ideas whatsoever.
I wonder if they can hit her for animal cruelty and even more devastating in NYC illegal parking.
“while wearing a giant python around her neck”
I once had a 10 foot female Burmese Python that I would occasionally take with me when I was driving. But it had to be cool out so that she would wrap herself around me to regulate her body temperature. Which eliminated the problem of her deciding to start moving around the inside of my car while I was driving.
There is no way a truly “giant python” could fit around anyone’s neck. So, whoever wrote this story was greatly exaggerating the size of the constrictor.
So . . . . What happened to the snake?
The Firemen kept the snake for when the strippers show up to practice on Firemen’s pole.
This 22 year old woman looks about 42. I guess you have to feel some sympathy for having to carry around the face given her by nature.
Statutory law in New York is organized into topical codes. As a rule, criminal charges are delineated in the Penal Law of New York. However, some are to be found in other codes, among them the Vehicle and Traffic Law, the various tax codes, &c. Reckless driving is an offense defined in the Vehicle and Traffic Law, whereas Reckless endangerment is to be found in the Penal Law. You see much worse than that. Some years ago near my home there was a ghastly car wreck in which four young people were killed and another had to be taken by copter to Albany. The local DA buffalo’d a grand jury into handing down an indictment for twelve counts of homicide (4x 2d degree manslaughter, 1st degree vehicular manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide). (Then the young man in question was permitted to plead guilty to a single count of criminally negligent homicide).
Isn’t the endangerment the act of driving with a snake on your neck? That would seem to be different from the reckless act of driving into a firehouse.