DA: Driver in fatal hit-run had 19 suspensions

A Huntington Station man involved in a collision that killed Nassau County deputy attorney Joseph Carney has had his license suspended 19 times and was driving a stolen car with stolen plates at the time of the crash, police said.

Speaking Wednesday at Nassau police headquarters in Mineola, Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey called Robert Feder a "30-year career criminal" for his string of driving violations and mostly misdemeanor arrests.

Feder, 51, faces a charge of second-degree manslaughter for the death of Carney, 62, who was killed when he was broadsided Tuesday at a residential intersection in Westbury.

Feder also faces charges of driving while impaired by drugs, reckless driving and criminal possession of stolen property, among others.

Officers on patrol for aggressive drivers were about to attempt to pull Feder over when he sped away and ran a red light, colliding with Carney and another vehicle, police said.

Two uniformed officers in an unmarked, black Crown Victoria spotted Feder at the wheel of a Hyundai Elantra on Old County Road cross a solid white line just before noon, police said. The officers followed at a distance as the Hyundai turned north onto Ellison Avenue.

Det. Lt. John Azzata of the Homicide Squad said officers intended to pull the driver over as they crested an overpass and saw the Hyundai racing away, running stop signs along Ellison. Azzata said it was unclear if Feder knew he was being followed as he accelerated down the far side of the overpass.

"He may have already had his antenna up because he was driving a stolen car," he said. The officer turned on lights and sirens and was poised to begin a pursuit as the Hyundai reached the intersection at Maple Avenue, he said.

"Once they [the officers] come over the top and down to the bottom, he's already into the intersection and that car," Azzata said. Carney died at the scene. A driver of a van stopped at the light was also injured and hospitalized.

At his arraignment at Nassau University Medical Center Wednesday, Feder laid half-propped in a bed, blinking slowly and without comment. District Court Judge Gary Knobel ordered him held without bail. Feder did not have a license at the time of the crash.

His lawyer, Holly Hobart of the Legal Aid Society, said Feder spent most of his life in Old Bethpage and worked as a service manager before going on disability 20 years ago. Nassau police described Feder as a drifter, living in hotels and halfway houses, with no regular employment.

The 2010 Hyundai was reported stolen from a Hicksville dealership in November; the Florida plates found on the car were taken from a vehicle in New York City in April.

One of two counts of criminal contempt stem from an incident in Old Bethpage in January in which police said Feder went to his mother's home in violation of a protection order. He then sped away from responding officers and ran a red light in what is believed to be the same Hyundai involved in the Tuesday crash.