Cohoes man pleads guilty in fatal crash in Clifton Park
BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. >> The Cohoes man charged with causing a fatal two-car auto accident in Clifton Park in May pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated vehicular homicide in Saratoga County Court before Judge James A. Murphy III.
Media reports show Dickie Winn, 59, admitted to driving recklessly on May 25 with a blood alcohol content above the legal limit and crashing his auto into a car stopped at a traffic signal at the intersection of Ushers Road and Route 9 causing the death of the car’s driver John Heneghan, 33 and his wife Caitlyn J. Holtzman, 32.
Passengers Luke O’Doherty, 25, Enda Crowley, 25, and Julia Staples, 24 were passengers in Heneghan’s car and were seriously injured in the crash.
By taking the plea offered by the Saratoga County District Attorney’s office Winn can be sentenced to serve between 6 1/3 years to 19 years in a correctional facility when sentenced on Nov. 21 by Murphy. Winn remains free on $300,000 bond.
At court appearances earlier in the case in Clifton Park Town Court it was revealed that Winn served 23 years in the U.S. Army, had been deployed to foreign lands including Iraq and Afghanistan seven times, received the Medal of Valor, had his neck fused and rods placed from his military service, and received an honorable medical discharge from the Army. He had no criminal record of any kind as an adult or as a juvenile at the time of his arrest in May.
After the accident he was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, two counts of vehicular manslaughter, and driving while intoxicated. Court documents show Winn had a BAC of .16 percent at the time of the crash.
After several conferences between the Saratoga County District Attorney’s office and Winn’s attorney, Saratoga County Assistant District Attorney Shawn Lescault made the plea offer public in open court at an appearance before Clifton Park Town Judge James Hughes on Aug. 14.
Winn’s attorney had no comment.
The accident that claimed the two lives happened shortly before 3 p.m. on May 25. According to legal filings with the court, Winn’s black, 2016 Dodge Ram 1500 truck was traveling southbound on Route 9 when it left its lane of travel and struck a black, four door Cadillac sedan which had been traveling east on Ushers Road but was stopped at the traffic signal at Route 9.
The Cadillac held Heneghan, Holtzman, O’Doherty, Crowley, and Staples.
Media reports from Monday’s proceedings note friends and family of the victims were in the courtroom.