Man convicted in boating death of girl
QUEENSBURY, N.Y. >> An upstate New York man was convicted Monday in the boating death of an 8-year- old California girl who was vacationing with her family on an Adirondack lake last summer.
A Warren County jury found Alexander West, 25, guilty of second- degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, boating while impaired by alcohol and leaving the scene of a crash.
The judge ordered him taken into custody without bail and set a June 5 sentencing date. The Lake George man faces a maximum sentence of 7 1/3 to 25 years in prison.
The charges stemmed from the death last July of Charlotte McCue of Carlsbad, California. Prosecutors say West was impaired by drugs and alcohol when his motor boat collided with the McCue family’s boat on Lake George the evening of July 25.
Jurors heard 12 days of testimony, including emotional accounts from Charlotte’s parents, Courtney and Eric McCue, and the girl’s grandfather, Robert Knarr. They told how they were approaching Knarr’s home on the lake’s shore after a twilight cruise when suddenly another boat slammed into theirs.
Authorities said West’s 21- foot fiberglass boat struck Knarr’s 28-foot Gar Wood in the right rear and flew over the antique wooden boat. Charlotte, sleeping with her head on her mother’s lap, was killed instantly when the airborne boat’s propeller struck her. Courtney McCue suffered serious injuries.