Man pleads guilty to vehicular manslaughter
A Shandaken man pleaded guilty Wednesday to vehicular manslaughter for the 2015 car crash that claimed the life of 64-year-old Dolores Falkowski of Phoenicia.
Danny H. Griffin, 32, of 230 Creek Side Drive, entered the guilty plea to Ulster County Judge Donald Williams as pre-trial hearings in the case were about to get underway. Griffin was arrested on Jan. 6, following what state police at the time called “an exhaustive investigation” by the agency’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office into the circumstances surrounding the Aug. 25, 2015 three-car crash.
The accident occurred at around 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 25, 2015, near Runge Road in the town of Olive. Griffin was westbound on state Route 28 in a 2001 Toyota Sienna van when the vehicle he was driving drifted into the eastbound lane.
Robert Olsen, of West Shokan, was driving eastbound in a 1999 Crown Victoria and was forced to swerve off the road to avoid colliding with Griffin’s vehicle. Griffin’s vehicle continued westbound in the eastbound lane, striking headon the 2008 Subaru Impreza being driven by Falkowski, who was on her way to work at the time of the crash.
In entering his guilty plea, Griffin admitted to being impaired by fentanyl as a result of using heroin that had been laced with fentanyl, an opioid which is nearly 100 times stronger than morphine. According to a press release issued Wednesday by the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office, Griffin purchased heroin laced with fentanyl in Newburgh in the early morning hours of August 25, 2015, and injected himself with the drug before driving home to Shandaken.
Griffin also possessed a small amount of cocaine and heroin in his van at the time of the crash. Two crack pipes, numerous hypodermic needles, and a tourniquet used to assist with drug injection were found in Griffin’s vehicle.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 17.