DUI
New Jersey DWI News
Ferrari Owner Hits Multiple Cars Trying to Avoid NJ DWI Traffic Stop
Driver is a bail bondsman with his own criminal history.
David Sainato, 42, is a bail bondsman who makes a living out of helping people get out jail. On Monday evening he had to post his own bail after crashing his Ferrari during a wild chase that resulted in several people being sent to the hospital.
Weehawken police were alerted to a gray Ferrari 430 that had hit several cars around 6:30 pm. Police managed to pull over the vehicle but as they approached, Sainato sped away, striking a Subaru station wagon in his attempted escape. The Ferrari then struck two more vehicles a few hundred yards away. One of those vehicles, a Chevrolet Impala carrying six people, flipped over and came to a rest on its roof. Finally the Ferrari, which had a value of $262,000 when new, hit a Nissan Maxima, damaging yet another vehicle with flying debris.
Sainato was treated for head trauma at a local medical center. Four of the six people in the Impala were treated for non-life threatening injuries.
The results of tests for blood alcohol content are still pending. Sainato faces several charges, including driving while intoxicated in New Jersey.
Sainato was arrested for making terroristic threats last September 30. On November 23 he was charged again with making terroristic threats and for aggravated assault. He is currently out on $250,000 bail for those charges. Last February, Sainato sideswiped another vehicle and hit a tree, for which he was charged with drunk driving in New Jersey and resisting arrest. In the early 90’s, he spent four year in prison for various crimes, including conspiracy to commit arson. Sainato received four years probation in July 2003 for assault by auto.
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Court to Set Basis for NJ DWI Stop
State Supreme Court decision could impact drunk driving cases in New Jersey.
The Supreme Court of New Jersey is scheduled to hear arguments in a case that could establish a new course for DWI prosecutions in the state. The justices will be deciding the set of circumstances that need to be considered before a law enforcement officer stops a motorist based on a tip. Currently such calls are given less weight than anonymous calls from concerned citizens.
At the heart of the situation is a New Jersey DWI case against Paul Amelio. During an argument with his daughter, Amelio left his house, got in his car and drove off. His daughter called the police and told them her father was drunk. The officer followed Amelio until he returned to his driveway, and then charged him with driving while intoxicated in NJ. Amelio pleaded guilty but then appealed.
Amelio’s defense attorney, Douglas Kinz, said that the police did not have enough information to warrant a traffic stop and initiate an arrest. Historically the courts have ruled that such tips must involve specifics, and in the case of a suspected drunk driver, an estimate of the amount of alcohol someone has consumed. Amelio’s daughter simply said her father was ‘drunk’ and provided no further information. Nor did she witness any erratic driving. Kinz stated that the police who responded to the scene, “lacked a reasonable and articulable suspicion that (Amelio) had violated the law.” It was entirely possible Amelio’s 17-year old daughter may not have known the difference between acting belligerent and being intoxicated, and Kinz raised the question as to whether she was in the same room as her father at the time of the argument.
In the absence of specific information, tips can be viewed as vendettas, using the police as instruments of revenge. Evan Levow, a leading lawyer in New Jersey DWI defense, said the questions being asked by the Supreme Court about procedure in a traffic stop based on a tip “are important…(as they address) when it is permissible to intrude upon the freedoms of all drivers.” Kinz warned that, if the court upholds the traffic stop of Amelio, anyone driving a car will be subject to being stopped on a hunch and a guess.
Both a Superior Court and a panel of judges on the state Appellate Division ruled that Amelio’s New Jersey DWI conviction should not stand. Prosecutors however appealed to the high court.
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Judge Charged With New Jersey DWI
New Jersey Municipal judge nabbed for second NJ DWI incident while in black Maserati.
George Korpita, a Dover municipal judge, has been charged with his second New Jersey DWI. Korpita had left Zoe's By the Lake in Sparta, New Jersey shortly after 10:30 pm when stopped by a policeman who observed a black Maserati driving erratically.
Korpita, 48, just recently resigned from his post as judge for the municipal courts in Dover, Rockaway Borough and Victory Gardens because of a New Jersey drunk driving arrest in Roxbury last November. In that incident Korpita was found slumped over the steering wheel of his car after drinking at a local go-go-bar. His blood alcohol content registered nearly three times the legal limit for driving while intoxicated in New Jersey. He reportedly told the arresting officer “I'm a judge, bro” and presented his judicial identification card. He pleaded guilty last December to NJ DWI and threatening the arresting police officers.
There is no indication that Korpita tried to use his former position to influence the police officers in the Sparta incident. He has been charged with driving while intoxicated in New Jersey, failure to keep right, careless driving and refusal to take a breath sample.
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Victims Angered by Plan to Name Road for Lawmaker Involved in NJ DWI
Former congressman injured two in New Jersey DWI wreck 15 years ago.
In 2006 the New Jersey State Assembly passed a bill to rename Route 23 in northern New Jersey for former U.S. Congressman Robert A. Roe. Roe served 23 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and, as chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, funneled billions of dollars in road funds to the state. Roe however was involved in a drunk driving accident that injured two people, and his victims and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) oppose the measure.
In May 1993, Roe was driving on the wrong side of the road in Rockaway Township when he ran into a minivan driven by Julia Worosila. The head-on crash left Julia and her 15 year-old daughter with serious injuries. Julia’s husband John suffered minor injuries.
Roe registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.17%, well above the legal limit for driving while intoxicated in New Jersey. While convicted of a New Jersey DWI, as part of a plea agreement he entered drug and alcohol counseling and avoided the serious crime of assault by auto. His license was suspended for six months and he paid court fines.
MADD has appealed to New Jersey Governor Corzine, asking him to block the legislation. Corzine’s office has said that the governor did not know about the NJ DWI accident when he signed the bill last month. In order to null the measure, another bill would have to be introduced to the state legislature. The original author of the bill has not replied to inquiries.
Congressman Roe declined comment through his attorney. John Worosila said Roe, “caused a nightmare for us”. He went on to say that lawmakers should be more concerned about maintaining the state roadways and think twice before assigning name rights.
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New Jersey Cops Target Bars
New tactic in battle with drunk driving
When motorists are arrested for DUI in New Jersey, they are now asked by police where they had been drinking. If the drunk driver identifies a bar or a restaurant that serves alcohol, those businesses could be penalized.
Law enforcement officers across the state enter the information into a database that helps them identify places that may be serving alcohol to those who are intoxicated. Because it is against the law to serve or sell alcohol to someone who is drunk, the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control could levy a fine and suspend or even revoke an establishment’s liquor license.
While supporting efforts to reduce drunk driving, the New Jersey Restaurant Association points out that there is little way of verifying the statements of DUI offenders. There are those who could simply lie, and unfairly hurt a restaurant or bar.
The bar identification question will be a part of the statewide police crackdown on drunk driving over the Labor Day holiday.
