Driver in fatal crash pleads guilty
Admits he was drunk and speeding
A Saugerties man admitted Thursday that he was drunk and speeding when he lost control of his Jeep Grand Cherokee on state Route 32 and struck a house, killing a close friend who was a passenger in the vehi- cle, according to the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office.
John Playford, 22, of Mower Mill Road, Saugerties, pleaded guilty in Ulster County Court before Judge Donald A. Williams to the felony of vehicular manslaughter and the misdemeanor of reckless endangerment, the District Attorney’s Office said.
The charges stem from a one-vehicle crash on Route 32 , nea r t he S a xton Fire Depar t ment , at 3:25 a.m. Jan. 31.
Play f ord was indicted by an Ulster County grand jury in July.
On Thursday, he admitted having a blood-alcohol content of 0.18 or higher, more than twice the legal limit, at the time of the crash, the District Attorney’s Office said. Playford also was under the influence of marijuana at the time, the prosecutor’s office said.
The crash investigation, by Saugerties police and state police, found Playford was speeding while southbound Route 32, lost control of the Jeep and struck a telephone pole, severing it. The vehicle then continued several hundred feet, crashed through a snow bank, became airborbne and struck the house at 3843 Route 32.
The Jeep went into a bedroom where two young children were sleeping, but they were not injured, police said.
The Jeep then overturned several times, and frontseat passenger Jacob Sweeney, 22, of Saugerties, was ejected before the vehicle came to rest on its roof.
Sweeney, a close friend of Playford’s, was pronounced dead at the scene. Playford was treated for minor injuries at HealthAlliance Hospital’s Broadway Campus in Kingston and released.
Playford is to be sentenced by Williams on Nov. 16 and faces up to 12 years in state prison.
He remained in the Ulster County Jail on Thursday in lieu of $50,000 bail.