Trial Approaches for Driver in Fatal Noyac Crash

Sean P. Ludwick, the driver charged with killing his passenger, Paul Hansen, in a drunken driving crash in Noyac last August, then fleeing the scene and leaving Mr. Hansen's body on the side of the road, will be put on trial within the next few months, New York State Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho said Thursday.

Mr. Ludwick is being held at the county jail in Yaphank and will be in custody until his trial. He had been free on a $1 million bond, but after allegedly plotting to escape by boat from Puerto Rico to a South American country with no extradition treaty with the United States, his bond was revoked and he was ordered held without bail. Shortly after that, his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, severed his relationship with Mr. Ludwick. He was represented in Justice Camacho's Central Islip Courtroom on Thursday by his new attorney, William Keahon.

According to John Scott Prudenti, the head of the Suffolk County District Attorney's vehicular crimes unit, Mr. Ludwick, 43, was drunk when he crashed his 2013 Porsche into a utility pole on Rolling Hill Court East, fatally injuring Mr. Hansen. Mr. Prudenti said Mr. Ludwick then dragged Mr. Hansen's body out of the car and left it at the side of the road. The prosecutor has not ruled out the possibility that Mr. Hansen may still have been alive when Mr. Ludwick drove off in the car, which at that point had four flat tires. Police reported that he only made it a couple of hundred yards. The crash was just yards from Mr. Hansen's house.

"I remind you, this case will be tried in the fall, this year, 2016," Justice Camacho told the attorneys, as he urged them along. Mr. Prudenti said the prosecution had shared all the evidence with Mr. Ludwick's attorney, including the toxicology and autopsy reports. All that the prosecutor is waiting for is the New York State police report on the accident scene recreation. Mr. Keahon then demanded the notes of the various investigators involved that led to the creation of those reports, something Mr. Prudenti indicated would be done. Justice Camacho put both sides on a short leash, setting a final conference date of Aug. 3, telling both sides he expected all pre-trial exchanges to be finished by then.

Mr. Hansen's family was in the courtroom Thursday, as they have been for each court date. Mr. Prudenti spoke with them for about 20 minutes afterwards. He told reporters that he expected the state police report would be ready by August, explaining the delay as a natural backlog due to the many cases across the county and state involving drunken drivers in fatal accidents that required similar reports.

Mr. Ludwick, who was the head of BlackHouse Development prior to his trouble with the law, was not in court on Thursday.