Appeals court upholds Heidgen conviction

A state appellate court Thursday upheld the murder conviction of Martin Heidgen, who was driving drunk the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway in 2005 when he slammed into a limousine, killing the driver and a 7-year-old flower girl on her way home from a family wedding.

In a 3-1 decision, the State Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed Heidgen's conviction of depraved-indifference murder.

"The evidence presented to the jury established that the defendant engaged in reckless conduct, which created a 'grave' risk of death, thereby evincing a depraved indifference to human life," the majority decision said.

The decision also included a strongly worded dissent by Justice Jeffrey Cohen, who said that, however tragic the case, Heidgen's conviction should be reduced to second-degree manslaughter.

"There is no credible evidence, just speculation, that the defendant deliberately drove his vehicle the wrong way on the parkway in wanton disregard of human life," he wrote.

The rarely used charge of depraved indifference murder in drunken driving cases means, under the law, that his conduct was "so wanton . . . so devoid of regard of the life or lives of others," that it was as serious as if he killed someone intentionally, prosecutors said.

Neil Flynn, Katie's father, said: "Justice has been served. The jury rendered a proper decision. They applied the law to the facts of the case . . . My family is relieved to see that justice has been done at the appellate level."

Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who took office shortly after Heidgen's indictment and made his murder conviction a centerpiece of her campaign against drunken driving, said she was pleased with the decision.

"This decision affirms what the evidence made clear at trial: Martin Heidgen murdered Katie Flynn and Stanley Rabinowitz. While their families will never be able to fill the holes that Heidgen left in their lives, it is my fervent hope that they see today's decision as a great victory in the fight against drunk driving," she said.

Flynn and her family were returning home from a family wedding in Bayville when Heidgen, then 24, who had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, crashed into the limousine, prosecutors said. Katie, of Lido Beach, and Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale, were killed.

Heidgen, of Valley Stream, is serving 18 years to life in an upstate prison.

His lawyer, Jillian Harrington, of Manhattan, said she would ask the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, to review the case.

Harrington said in her appeal that Heidgen deserved at the most a manslaughter conviction, a lesser offense, because he was too drunk to act with depraved indifference. "We will continue our fight to prove that Martin Heidgen was convicted of the wrong crime and that the court's obvious errors denied him a fair trial," Harrington said.