DWI driver who killed teen back to prison
Kenneth Bowrosen is seen entering court in 1999, when he pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, second-degree vehicular manslaughter and DWI in connection with Paul Lopez's 1998 death. He was sent back to prison Feb. 25, 2011, on another drunken-driving conviction. Credit: Newsday, 1999 / John H. Cornell Jr.
A Coram man was sent to prison Friday on his third drunken driving conviction - 13 years after causing a collision that killed a Ronkonkoma teenager.
Since admitting that he drove drunk in 1998 and killed 17-year-old Paul Anthony Lopez, Kenneth Bowrosen now 36, has twice been convicted of felony driving while intoxicated.
In July 2009, Bowrosen returned to prison three years after being released.
Bowrosen then had been free for less than nine months before he was charged again last July 1 for driving drunk along Pine Road in Coram, the Suffolk district attorney's office said.
For that Coram incident, Bowrosen was sentenced Friday by State Supreme Court Justice William Condon to the maximum 11/3 to 4 years in prison.
Even though she was not a victim in this case, Condon allowed Lopez's mother, Celina, of Ronkonkoma, to speak before Bowrosen was sentenced.
"You have given my family a life sentence," she said. "Our family would not like to see another family receive a life sentence."
Bowrosen showed no apparent emotion as Lopez spoke and Condon pronounced the sentence.
Denna Cohen, chairwoman of Long Island Mothers Against Drunk Driving, called Bowrosen's sentence "sickening."
"We're giving people permission to drive drunk," said Cohen, whose daughter, Jodi, 21, was killed by a drunken driver in 1989. "This is somebody who will do it again."
On Jan. 31, Bowrosen was convicted by a jury of felony drunken driving. Multiple DWI convictions within 10 years raise the charge to a felony from a misdemeanor.
In 1999, Bowrosen pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, second-degree vehicular manslaughter and DWI in connection with Lopez's death. He was sentenced to 21/3 to 7 years in prison.
In 2009, he again was convicted of DWI and was sentenced to 1 year in prison.
Bowrosen declined to speak in court Friday.
His attorney, Sean Dixon of Legal Aid, said he had "paid his debt to society" for Lopez's death.
Celina Lopez and her husband, Jose, Paul Lopez's father, wore buttons bearing their son's picture. They said they accepted the sentence but would return to court if Bowrosen is arrested after he leaves prison.A timeline of Kenneth Bowrosen's DWI convictions:
