Baldwin woman faces Leandra’s Law in DWI arrest, say cops

A Baldwin woman was driving drunk with her 2-year-old son in the car Monday morning when she blew past two stop signs and hit a parked vehicle on Bennett Avenue in Hempstead, Nassau County police said.

The boy was not in a car seat, police said. Hempstead police, who made the arrest, charged Janelle Jessup, 34, with Leandra’s Law violations of driving while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated with a child under 15, operating a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol, aggravated driving without a license, endangering the welfare of a child and driving with an unrestrained child less than 4 years old in the rear seat. Jessup was also charged with multiple traffic violations.

Police said they were on patrol when they saw Jessup’s 2013 Hyundai drive through the two stop signs on Westbury Boulevard. Jessup turned onto Bennett Avenue, stopping only when she hit the parked vehicle at Pennsylvania Avenue.

Jessup’s arraignment information was unavailable Monday afternoon. Online court records show at least two similar cases pending against Jessup in addition to several other traffic cases.

Under Leandra’s Law, drivers who are intoxicated or impaired by drugs with a child 15 or younger in the vehicle can be charged with a felony.

The law is named for 11-year-old Leandra Rosado of Manhattan, who was killed in an October 2009 DWI crash in which the vehicle she was in, driven by the mother of a friend whose sleepover party she was attending, overturned on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan.

The driver, Carmen Huertas, was charged with vehicular manslaughter and later sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison. She remains incarcerated upstate.