Defendant convicted of felony DWI, released until sentencing, is dangerous, flight risk, Suffolk DA says

An acting Suffolk County Supreme Court justice ordered a man convicted of felony driving while intoxicated released until his October sentencing, despite prosecutors’ application for him to be jailed as a repeat offender and alleged flight risk.

A Suffolk jury convicted Pablo Aguilar-Alvarez, 36, of two felony counts of driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, a misdemeanor, on Aug. 7. Acting Justice Bryan Browns ordered Aguilar-Alvarez to return for sentencing in his Riverhead courtroom Oct. 2.

An Aug. 10 news release from the office of Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney highlighted Brown's denial of prosecutors' request to hold the defendant until sentencing, describing Aguilar-Alvarez as a "danger to society." It cited his four previous DWI convictions, three of them felonies, from 2012 through 2022.

The release described Aguilar-Alvarez as a Salvadoran national and said the office “had reason to believe [Aguilar-Alvarez] was planning on fleeing from Suffolk County." 

A complainant in an earlier unrelated case made remarks that Aguilar-Alvarez was planning to leave the country, a representative for Tierney's office wrote in an email Thursday.  

Tierney said in the release: “Even now, despite the jury’s verdict, there is nothing to stop him from once again getting behind the wheel and endangering the lives of Suffolk County residents." 

Aguilar-Alvarez was released with "non-monetary conditions" following his not-guilty plea at arraignment last December, according to online court records. The conditions of release are not specified in those records, but typical requirements include that a defendant maintain contact with a pretrial services agency, surrender their passport and maintain housing and employment. 

Under state law, judges have discretion to release defendants in cases involving certain offenses. Felony drunken driving is not a crime that requires bail to be set.

Aguilar-Alvarez faces up to 7 years in prison.

Steven Epstein, a lawyer who heads the DWI and vehicular crimes group at the Long Island- and Manhattan-based firm Barket Epstein Kearon Aldea & LoTurco, said that under New York State law, the key factor a judge must weigh when considering detention and release is not a defendant’s “dangerousness" but their "likelihood of flight."

A judge would consider a number of factors to evaluate that risk, including a defendant’s history, the likelihood of incarceration or an appeal, and whether the defendant had previously attempted to flee or had appeared in court, Epstein said.

“I understand the DA’s position," Epstein said, but the key question is, “Will this person come back to court?"

Tierney, a prominent critic of New York’s bail reform law, has said that elimination of cash bail leads to recidivism, an assertion reform proponents have said is false.

A lawyer for Aguilar-Alvarez did not comment. Browns, former director of the Suffolk County Traffic and Parking Violations Agency and a former Suffolk Legal Aid Society lawyer, could not be reached. A representative for the state court system did not comment.

The release from Tierney's office notes prominently that the district attorney's remand application was denied by the court, and says Aguilar-Alvarez was deported from the United States in 2024 and is “currently illegally present" in the country.

The press office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to a request for comment. The agency’s mission includes removal of “aliens unlawfully present" in the United States.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.