BOOZE DRIVER
MTA bus guy in DWI bust after hitting cars
He was “smashed” and then he smashed, police said. MTA driver Lenny Lachman allegedly had a blood-alcohol level of 0.257 — more than three times the legal limit — when he plowed his bus with nine passengers into a row of cars in Brooklyn yesterday.
A rookie MTA driver, extremely drunk on cheap vodka, lost control of his bus and ran into a row of cars while carrying nine passengers in Brooklyn early Sunday morning, police said.
No one was hurt when Lenny Lachman crashed his B82 bus near Flatlands Avenue and 56th Street at around 1:30 a.m., cops said — adding that he had a staggering bloodalcohol level of 0.257, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08.
A sobriety test conducted at the scene was even higher — 0.329 — cops said. The lower, official number was registered after he was brought to a station house.
Lachman, 24, was drinking Georgi vodka before the crash, and cops seized from him two bottles of it — one opened, one sealed, according to a high-ranking police source.
Riders called 911 after the Flatlands crash and told cops that they were terrified by Lachman’s erratic driving — and that he even tried to continue on his route following the smash-up.
“Passengers on the bus convinced him to stop after he hit a bunch of cars,” the source said.
Lachman, who lives in Kew Gardens, Queens, was charged with reckless driving and three counts of DWI.
Flatlands resident Chris Abruzzo told The Post the driver “hit the curb pretty hard” when he stopped to let him on the bus at Kings Highway and 28th Street.
“Once I got on, I noticed he looked off, so I decided to stand right behind him, behind the yellow line,” Abruzzo said.
Lachman “pulled in and out of the stops really quick” and got belligerent when Abruzzo asked if he was “trying to make up for lost time, being late to the stop I was originally at,” Abruzzo added.
“He turned and looked at me and said, ‘What?’ completely slurred, and that’s when I knew.
“So I said to him, ‘What, are you drunk?’ He says to me, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ — still all slurred and everything — so I told him, ‘No, what are you gonna do about it?’ ”
Abruzzo, a heating and refrigeration repairman, said he “called the cops as soon as I got off,” adding, “He’s lucky people didn’t get hurt — or even worse.”
Lachman’s alleged BAC of 0.257 percent is equal to a 200-pound man drinking about 16 beers in a two-hour span, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The MTA said Lachman was suspended without pay, noting, “We have absolutely zero tolerance for these alleged actions and behavior.”
He was granted supervised release after an arraignment hearing Sunday night and declined to comment as he left Brooklyn Criminal Court.
Officials said Lachman was hired in May 2017, but on his Facebook page, he says he started driving a bus on Oct. 3.
His social-media profile identifies him as a DJ wannabe called Mistah Trickstah.
Ironically, Lachman had posted memorials to four ex-schoolmates from Richmond Hill HS who were killed in 2012 when their pal — who was high on marijuana — crashed his souped-up sports car while doing 110 mph.
Driver Joseph Beer, then 17, had only a learner’s permit when his 2012 Subaru Impreza skidded off the Southern State Parkway, smashed into a tree and burst into flames.
Beer, the sole survivor, is serving five to 15 years in prison.