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Jurors hear blood-alcohol content testimony

BY ANN GIVENS | Newsday Staff Writer

September 28, 2006

More than a week of legal wrangling over murder suspect Martin Heidgen's blood ended yesterday when a Nassau judge finally allowed a toxicologist to tell jurors Heidgen had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system when he crashed his pickup truck into a limousine in July 2005, killing two people.

Lisa Lindenthaler, a State Police forensic toxicologist, was abruptly pulled off the stand last week after Acting State Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof ruled that State Police mishandling of Heidgen's blood made it impossible to be certain if the blood taken from Heidgen's arm was the same blood police tested for alcohol.

Since then, prosecutors have rushed to prove through a DNA test that it was Heidgen's blood police tested. Prosecutors said Heidgen foiled their first DNA test - a saliva swab - by holding another man's bodily fluid in his mouth. But the second DNA test they took - this one by drawing Heidgen's blood - proved definitively that the police blood sample belonged to Heidgen, according to forensic geneticist Daniel Arana.

Yesterday, Lindenthaler returned to the stand to tell jurors that Heidgen's blood had an alcohol content of .28 percent, or more than three times the legal limit of .08 percent. That means that Heidgen had about 14 drinks in his system at the time of the crash, prosecutors have said.

Heidgen, 25, of Valley Stream, is accused of driving drunk the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway, hitting the limousine as it returned from a wedding in Bayville. Killed were the limo driver, Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale, and Katie Flynn, 7, of Long Beach, who had served as a flower girl in her aunt's wedding.

Heidgen's lawyer, Stephen LaMagna of Garden City, has said it's likely that Heidgen's blood was switched or tampered with.

"If now you are told that the vials taken from an individual had white labels on them and initials ... and you see blood with red labels and no initials, that would be a problem, wouldn't it?" LaMagna asked Lindenthaler during cross-examination.

Lindenthaler said it would be a problem.

But prosecutors said the DNA test that proves it's Heidgen's blood in the vials that were tested should remove any doubt in the jury's mind about how drunk Heidgen was. Arana said there is only a one in a trillion chance that blood could belong to anyone else, and noted that there are only about 6 billion people in the world.

At a glance

Previously: State Police mishandling of Martin Heidgen's blood sample prompted the judge to throw the sample out of the trial.

Yesterday: After prosecutors used DNA to prove the sample was Heidgen's, the jury heard that Heidgen's blood-alcohol content was three times the legal limit.

Still to come: The trial resumes Tuesday after a hiatus. The defense will begin to present its case next week.