Teenage girl sentenced in DWI fatality

Via MattarMedia LOCKPORT— Ashley M. Sullivan is in the Niagara County Jail today, and Facebook may be to blame as much as the car crash that killed a Niagara Falls man.

Sullivan, 17, of Linden Avenue, North Tonawanda, was sentenced Wednesday to six months in the County Jail and five years’ probation for crashing her car while drunk and killing her boyfriend May 30 on Sweeney Street in North Tonawanda.

She pleaded guilty Nov. 18 to criminally negligent homicide and misdemeanor driving while intoxicated.

The Buffalo News has learned that Sullivan went to Florida a month after the crash and posted a photo on her Facebook Web page captioned, “Drunk in Florida.”

“I’m troubled by your conduct since the crash,” County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III told Sullivan, “and that’s the reason for the jail sentence.”

Murphy also refused to grant Sullivan youthful offender status for the same reason.

“I don’t believe the defendant has earned it,” the judge said.

Murphy, in reading the terms of probation, went out of his way to emphasize to Sullivan that she isn’t allowed to drink for the next five years.

“You’re 17 years old. You’re not old enough to drink,” Murphy said.

When defense attorney Glenn Murray said in court, “This young woman is remorseful,” someone laughed among a crowd of more than two dozen of the victim’s friends and relatives, drawing a reprimand from the judge.

Sullivan was drunk at 2:21 a. m. May 30, when she crashed her car into a brick pillar in front of Deerwood Golf Course. Her blood alcohol content was measured at 0.13 percent — the legal standard for intoxication is 0.08 percent—and her speed was estimated at 56 mph in a 30-mph zone.

Her boyfriend and passenger, Alex Rozicki, 20, of Niagara Falls, was killed.

“They say he died on impact. Sometimes I hear him screaming and then, silence,” Renee Rozicki, the victim’s mother, said in court. “I wonder if he felt any pain or fear.”

She said her son was a huge Buffalo Sabres fan and was buried with his Sabres jersey.

“Alex was an organ donor. He thought that from an early age that if anything happened to him, he could leave parts behind to give somebody a better life,” his mother said.

Deputy District Attorney Theodore A. Brenner said Renee Rozicki told a probation officer during the presentencing investigation that she would prefer a split sentence combining jail with probation.

“That’s awfully decent of her,” Brenner said, adding that the family opposed youthful-offender status.

Murphy, who could have sentenced Sullivan to up to four years in state prison, said his decision was difficult “because of the defendant’s extreme youth and her past history.”

He ordered that after Sullivan gets out of jail, she will be under electronic home monitoring for a year. He also revoked her driver’s license.

“My client failed to consider the consequences, the tragic consequences,” Murray said. “This offender understands the tragedy she is responsible for. She will never forgive herself.”

He said Sullivan had decided not to speak at the sentencing, although when Murphy asked her, Sullivan managed to say, “I’m very sorry,” before breaking down in tears.

The Rozicki family is expected to file a wrongful death suit against Sullivan. Attorney Robert Viola of Niagara Falls is handling that case.