Guilty verdict in Mystic hit-and-run

Woman badly injured when struck near restaurant; defendant has history of DUI arrests

A jury in New London Superior Court on Friday delivered a guilty verdict in the case of Ryan Ragalis, the New Britain man with a history of drunken driving arrests who severely injured a 28-year-old woman in a 2019 hit-and-run in downtown Mystic.

The six-member jury found Ragalis, 29, guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, second-degree assault with a motor vehicle and second-degree assault that results in serious physical injury. Ragalis was found not guilty of evading responsibility. The two assault charges are felonies.

Assistant State’s Attorney David Smith, who prosecuted the case, said it was Ragalis’ fifth conviction for driving under the influence. Under state law, an individual convicted of a third impaired driving offense within 10 years faces up to three years in prison, along with fines, a license suspension and installation of an ignition interlock device.

Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy, who additionally found Ragalis guilty of driving with a suspended license, ordered Ragalis held on a $1 million bond.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 23 when Ragalis faces up to 18 years in prison.

Ragalis, whose license was suspended already from a previous drunken driving arrest, had a blood alcohol concentration of .27, more than three times the legal limit of .08, when Groton Town Police said his vehicle plowed into 28-year-old Bethany Billing as she stepped into the roadway with a friend outside her apartment opposite of Pizzetta restaurant at 7 Water St. In Mystic.

The accident occurred shortly after midnight on June 16, 2019.

Witnesses said Ragalis’ vehicle never slowed after he struck Billing and sped from the scene. He was followed by a witness to the crime who called 911 and trailed Ragalis into Stonington, where Ragalis crashed into a tree on Cove Road.

Billing suffered a laceration to her head that required 20 staples, a severe concussion, several fractured vertebra, a fractured sacrum, a pelvis broken in two places, two broken teeth, a broken nose, a cut chin and abrasions on several parts of her body.

Smith said Billing, who initially did not recall any of the events of that night, testified at trial about the reconstructive surgery she underwent in the aftermath of the incident. She was in the intensive care unit at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital for three days and hospitalized for an additional week before being discharged. She had moved into her parents home after the crash so that she could have assisted care.

The verdict came on the second day of deliberations after a two-day trial in New London Superior Court.

“I think the jury did a very good job listening to the facts in the case,” Smith said. “For the victim, it’s some type of closure although she still suffers from pain and short-term memory loss.”

Smith said the case is an example of the dangers of driving while impaired.

The case was investigated by Groton Town Police who had interviewed multiple witnesses to the accident and spent months developing evidence that led to an arrest warrant and Ragalis’ arrest on Sept. 5, 2019.

Billing was hit shortly after leaving her apartment with a friend at Factory Square at 12 Water St., near the public bathrooms. The two were crossing the street toward Pizzetta restaurant where Billing’s friend said she saw a car parked in front of the public bathrooms but no oncoming traffic. As the two began to cross, Billing’s friend told police she saw headlights and believed a car had cut around the parked vehicle. Billing was “struck so hard she was thrown onto a grassy area beyond the sidewalk in front of Pizzetta.”

The witness who had followed Ragalis’ rented Kia Optima said he was behind Ragalis near the public bathrooms on Water Street when Ragalis started backing up toward his vehicle. The witness said he honked his horn to alert the driver, who in turn abruptly stopped and took off north on Water Street at a high rate of speed, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. The witness saw Ragalis’ vehicle strike Billing and narrowly miss another woman without braking.

Among multiple other previous arrests, Ragalis was charged in 2017 in connection with a hit-and-run crash on Interstate 84 in West Hartford in which police said he sideswiped a vehicle and struck a police cruiser before his arrest for drunken driving.

Ragalis had been free on a $250,000 bond in the Groton case until Friday’s guilty verdict. He is represented in the case by attorney Michael Brown, who was not immediately available for comment.