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Trial in fatal limo crash set to begin

Prosecutors look to make murder case against man accused of drunken driving and killing 2 people in '05

BY ANN GIVENS | Newsday Staff Writer

September 11, 2006

Twelve Nassau County jurors will begin hearing testimony today in one of the highest-profile drunken driving trials ever on Long Island.

At stake is the fate of Martin Heidgen, a 25-year-old Valley Stream man who prosecutors say got so drunk July 2 last year that he drove the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway. His pickup truck slammed into a limousine and killed two people, driver Stanley Rabi- nowitz and 7-year-old Katie Flynn, who had just served as a flower girl in her aunt's wedding.

Prosecutors say the crime was so brutal, and Heidgen acted with such depraved indifference to human life, that he should be convicted of second-degree murder. Heidgen's lawyer, Stephen LaMagna of Garden City, said his client is no murderer.

In jury selection last week, lawyers found it was nearly impossible to find jurors who had not heard about the case. Instead, lawyers asked whether jurors could put aside what they may have heard about it in the news. The nine men and three women who were selected all said they could. Six alternate jurors were also chosen.

In questioning prospective jurors, lawyers previewed some points they are likely to make during what Acting State Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof said could be a five-week trial.

Prosecutor Maureen McCormick, who will seek to prove that Heidgen was in a depraved state of mind at the time of the accident, asked jurors whether they thought Heidgen's actions could show how he was feeling.

"I can assure you that you are not going to hear evidence that he was screaming out the window, 'I don't care what happens to anyone,'" she said. But she hinted that prosecutors believe Heidgen drove the wrong way for several miles, ignoring the warnings of people who passed him.

For his part, LaMagna asked jurors whether they understood that all deaths in alcohol-related accidents are not necessarily murder. He has said before that District Attorney Kathleen Rice charged Heidgen with murder to fulfill a campaign promise to be tough on drunken drivers.

"You would agree that this is not the agenda of the district attorney, to charge murder in a DWI case when she ran on being tough on DWI, wouldn't you?" LaMagna asked jurors as a prosecutor objected.