segunda-feira, 29 de abril de 2019

Newington man rejects plea offer for double fatal crash in Farmington; claims Ambien caused him to ’sleep drive’

A Newington man who faces manslaughter and assault charges for a 2017 crash on Route 6 in Farmington that killed two and injured two rejected a plea offer Tuesday that would have sent him to prison for 12 years.

Instead, Edward Brozynski, 55, opted to take his chances with a jury. His lawyer, Wesley Spears of Hartford, wants to use a rare defense that claims Brozynski was "sleep driving" when the crash occurred as a result of using the sleep medication Ambien.

Zolpidem, the generic name for Ambien, is classified as a sedative-hypnotic and has been associated with incidents of sleep driving, according to a 2011 article in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

"We believe that ... he was basically unconscious," Spears said Tuesday. "When he left the house our argument is he was not walking in a conscious mind."

Brozynski has been jailed since his arrest in February 2018 and does not have the money needed to hire a toxicologist to evaluate his case and determine whether such a defense could be employed, Spears said. He has asked Hartford Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini to order the state to pay for a consultant.

Such an expert "could confirm defendant's assertion that he was unconscious prior to entering the vehicle and during the subject incident," Spears wrote in his formal request to the judge.

Ambien was not the only drug in Brozynski's system prior to the Sept. 14, 2017 crash, according to the warrant for his arrest.

He had a blood alcohol content of 0.17 percent and had an anti-anxiety drug called meprobamate and oxycodone in his system, according to the warrant.

Several witnesses also told police Brozynski was driving excessively fast, passing them, crossing into the oncoming lane and driving dangerously prior to the crash. Two drivers witnessed the crash and rushed to aid the victims in the Mazda, according to police.

The offer Brozynski rejected Tuesday would have required him to plead guilty to two counts of manslaughter with a motor vehicle and two counts of second-degree assault with a motor vehicle. He will now proceed to trial on two counts of first-degree manslaughter, a single count of second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle, two counts of second-degree assault with a motor vehicle and a single count of driving without insurance.

Brozynski's unregistered and uninsured Honda Accord crashed head-on into a Mazda 3 carrying four people who were en route from Quebec to Bristol to attend a funeral, police said. Benoit Boislard and Rejean St. Pierre, both 66, were fatally injured in the crash and died at local hospitals. The driver and front passenger in the Mazda, Lisette Prince, 60, and the driver, Angelique Michaud, 46, were injured.

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