Florida Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

An NYPD cop on his way home from work was killed Monday when his car was rammed by a boozed-up Brooklyn man driving the wrong way, authorities said.

Officer Andre Menzies - a father of five - was driving east on the Northern State Parkway in Dix Hills, L.I., about 12:05 a.m. when he was hit head-on by Michael Bowen's Ford van.

Bowen, 50, of Brownsville, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 - more than three times the legal limit, authorities said. He suffered only minor injuries.

Investigators believe Menzies, 35, a nine-year veteran assigned to the Queens Housing Bureau, died on impact.

He lived in North Babylon, L.I., with his wife, Natacha, and their two children - ages 9 and 7. He also left behind three daughters - ages 12, 14 and 15 - he had with his first wife, who died a dozen years ago.

"I lost my mom and my dad," said Andrea Menzies, 15. "He was all I had left."

Andrea described her father as "just a regular dad" and recalled how he would always take her shopping. Her sister, Melissa, 14, remembered how her father, a former college basketball player, taught her the game.

"We're just in shock. Nobody can believe it," said Menzies' father, Robert Menzies, 58, who is raising the three older children.

Bowen was arrested for driving while intoxicated and reckless driving, authorities said. The deadly crash occurred just east of the Wolf Hill Road exit. State troopers got a report of a wrong-way driver on the parkway, but didn't find Bowen in time, said Tom Magno, assistant chief of the Dix Hills Volunteer Fire Department.

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly expressed his condolences. "His young children are left without a father as a result of a senseless accident," Kelly said.

Menzies had a civil suit pending against the NYPD in federal court, claiming the department harassed him and hampered his efforts to get promoted to sergeant after unsubstantiated insurance fraud accusations against him. The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The widow's sister, Margaret Ford, said the family at first didn't tell Menzies' only son, Joshua, 9, his dad had died. "'Do you think my dad would be able to come to my basketball game tomorrow?'" the boy asked, Ford said.

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. (CBS 2/1010 WINS) — A New Jersey teacher is under arrest, accused of teaching students some scandalous and illegal behavior – and doing it all out of his own home.

There was a visible police presence at Governor Livingston High School in Berkeley Heights on Friday as new questions and concerns came from both students and parents.

The topic of those questions was science teacher Frank Melchiorre, now suspended with pay for allegedly engaging in illegal extracurricular activities in his own apartment – with students.

“If the allegations are true, he’ll need to be dismissed, and hopefully he’ll do some prison time,” one parent said. “But let’s find out what the story is first, I think.”

Morris County prosecutors say the 26-year-old, hired in the district four years ago, is charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, providing alcohol to persons under the legal drinking age of 21, and allowing underage persons them to drink in his home.

“On the first day of orientation, when we saw him, he looked like a student, and he was like, a little bit more interactive,” said sophomore Kerry Mosier.

Melchiorre was known for his outgoing personality in the classroom and it was apparently no secret he socialized with students outside of school.

“I thought it was tutoring, and then I heard all about this, and it was just very upsetting to me that kids, like my friends, would go there and do that with him,” said senior Joey Disarno. Asked if there were drugs and alcohol involved, he said “uh huh, it’s very upsetting.”

Galal Galal manages the pizza shop a few doors down from Melchiorre’s apartment in downtown Chatham. He said he often saw teenagers hanging around the apartment’s front entrance.

“You could tell they’re either high or a little bit drunk, especially when they come in here, get food. I personally don’t like it because I have kids in school and I don’t want to see my kids in the same situation where these kids are,” Galal said.

There’s growing support for Melchiorre on his Facebook fan page, but the teacher, who’s now staying at his parents’ home in Mount Arlington, is lying low.

While no one answered the door, school officials in Berkeley Heights say the matter is anything but closed – and county prosecutors’ criminal investigation continues.

Prosecutors have not disclosed whether the alleged incidents involved current of former students.

Federal court prosecutors have issued new information regarding the securities fraud allegations made against an ex-Tiki Island resident and nine of his accomplices. Harris Dempsey “Butch” Ballow faces charges related to a seven-year multimillion-dollar stock sale scam.

Ballow, 67, was indicted in 2003 for alleged money laundering and fraud. He pleaded guilty to the money laundering charge, agreed to cooperate with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and was released on $100,000 bond. However, he didn’t show up for his sentencing hearing and left the country. An arrest warrant was issued in 2004.

As a fugitive, Barrow is accused of using numerous aliases, including the names Tom Brown, John Gel, Marty Twinley, and Melvyn John Gelsthorpe. He allegedly used these names to control the following publicly traded companies: Medra, E-SOL International, Aztec Technology Partners (known as Ultimate Lifestyles), and Deep Earth Resources. He was living in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico on 2008 but disappeared the following year after allegedly persuading an investor to transfer $5 million to one of his companies. Mexican federal police finally arrested him at his home in Puerto Vallarta last July.

Also charged with wire fraud are Ballow’s wife Robin Harless Ballow, ex-Houston residents Ruben Garza Perez and Kelly Lyn Boothe, Austin, Texas attorney Patrick Lanier, Jeffrey Janssen Anuth, and five others. According to authorities, the defendants allegedly sold stock shares in the companies that Ballow acquired and controlled while he was a fugitive. They also are accused of concealing Ballow’s real name when they sold the stock to investors, issuing false information to raise and maintain stocks’ value, and not taking away the restrictions that kept investors from selling the stock and land ownership interests in a real estate development that never became a reality.

Love and marriage apparently go together like drinking and driving.

The State Patrol says it arrested a husband and wife for drunken driving on Sunday.

The 21-year-old husband, who is stationed at Fort Lewis, was seen driving erratically on northbound Interstate 5 early Sunday morning. He and his wife had been celebrating his return from overseas, the State Patrol says.

A military police officer saw the car but couldn't it make it stop.

But a trooper did stop the vehicle in front of the couple's apartment. The husband was arrested for DUI. The trooper noticed that the wife was also probably drunk but allowed her to go to her apartment after warning her not to drive.

The trooper took the husband to the patrol's Tacoma office. After the man was processed, the trooper escorted him outside.

The man's wife drove up to pick up her husband. Then she was arrested for drunken driving.

New York (CNN) -- Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was acquitted Wednesday of all but one count of conspiracy-related charges in a landmark civilian trial involving the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in civilian court.

Ghailani was convicted by a federal jury on a charge of conspiracy to destroy buildings and U.S. property in connection with his role in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The trial had been widely considered a testing ground for the Obama administration, which has said that it could try some terrorism suspects outside military tribunals and in civilian courts.

Ghailani's lawyer, Peter Quijano, said Wednesday's verdict was "a reaffirmation that this nation's judicial system is the greatest ever devised."

"It is a truly a system of laws and not men," he said.

The U.S. Justice Department responded in a written statement, referring to the one guilty finding by saying, "We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings."

U.S. Attorney Prett Bharara in a statement that he would seek the maximum sentence of life without parole at sentencing, which is scheduled for January.

Ghailani faced charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The bombings, for which al Qaeda claimed responsibility, killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans, and wounded thousands of others.

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan had rejected a defense plea for a mistrial on Monday after a juror claimed to have been chastised by fellow jurors for disagreeing with their conclusions.

Kaplan read aloud a note that he received from the juror, who asked to be "excused or exchanged" in the trial of the 36-year-old Tanzanian, telling his defense attorneys that it was not grounds for a mistrial.

Ghailani's attorneys had maintained that he was exploited by al Qaeda for his knowledge of Tanzania, but was not a conspiring member of the group that later claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Wednesday's verdict raises broader questions regarding those being held in the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and their prospects of facing civilian courts.

"The greater relevance has been the debate in this country of whether [alleged] terrorists held in Guantanamo can effectively be tried in a federal district court even though there may be problems with government witnesses," said Scott Silliman, executive director for the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security.

Kaplan previously had ruled that prosecutors couldn't call a key witness in the trial because Ghailani was coerced into disclosing the witness' identity.

Reaction to the verdict was quick in coming.

Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a co-founder of the group Keep America Safe, joined in a statement from the group lashing out at the Obama administration for having "rolled the dice in a time of war" with a civilian trial.

The statement called on Obama to "end this reckless experiment. Reverse course. Use the military commissions at Guantanamo that Congress has authorized."

Meanwhile, human rights advocates lauded Wednesday's verdict as evidence of a fair trial, which they said signals "the [Obama] administration should move forward with other detainees they wanted to try," according to Dixon Osburn, spokesman for Human Rights First -- a New York-based advocacy group.

"Those that said [the trial of Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts] would be a circus were proven wrong," he said.

By contrast, Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said he was "disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court."

King, who is the House's incoming Homeland Security Committee chairman, blamed Attorney General Eric Holder for the trial's outcome.

"He assured us that 'failure is not an option,'" King said in a written statement.

The prosecution, which made its closing arguments November 8, had accused Ghailani in a total of 285 counts of conspiracy and terrorism-related charges.

Ghailani was captured in Pakistan in 2004 and moved to Guantanamo two years later. He was transferred last year to a federal prison in New York.

Mario “Sammy” Levis, a member of the family that founded Puerto Rican bank-holding company Doral Financial Corp., was sentenced to five years in prison for securities fraud when he worked as Doral’s treasurer.

Levis was convicted in April of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud, for lying to investors about the value of mortgage-related assets held by the company.

“I do not believe that the five-year sentence will be disabling,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in Manhattan said during today’s sentencing. “I do not wish it to be.”

Griesa rejected prosecutors’ arguments to impose a prison term of as long as 34 years.

“It is inconceivable to me that that kind of a sentence would ever be seriously considered,” Griesa said.

Levis’s lawyer, Roy Black, said in a statement today that his client will appeal and that he will prove he’s innocent.

Prosecutors claimed Levis manipulated the value of mortgage-related assets to inflate the price of Doral stock. In March 2005, the Levis family owned 8.2 percent of the company’s shares, prosecutors said.

Doral, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, announced in September 2005 that it would restate its finances up to the end of 2004 and cut shareholder equity by $720 million because of overvalued assets. The company eventually paid $129 million to settle an investor lawsuit and a $25 million fine to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Levis, whose wife, parents and siblings were in the courtroom for his sentencing, asked Griesa to treat him leniently.

‘That’s Not Me’

“I never, never, never intended to do any harm to anyone,” Levis said. “That’s not me.”

“I am pleading with you now to be just,” he said.

In addition to the five-year sentence, Griesa ordered that Levis serve two years of supervised release. He didn’t impose a fine and deferred a ruling on restitution for the victims of the fraud.

Levis’s fraud caused a $4 billion decline in shareholder value when it was disclosed, prosecutors said. Griesa said he was unable to determine, for sentencing purposes, the precise amount lost by victims or gained by Levis from the fraud.

“I can’t quantify the harm in terms of a dollar amount and I won’t try to do it,” Griesa said.

Family Lender

The Levis family founded Doral as a small mortgage company in Puerto Rico in 1972. The company grew to become Puerto Rico’s biggest residential lender. Many members of the family worked as company executives, including former chief executive officer Salomon Levis, Mario’s uncle.

Prosecutors said that, from 2001 to 2005, Levis caused Doral to inflate the value of “interest-only strips,” or “IOs,” held by the company. Levis misled investors into believing the value of the IOs had been determined by two independent, outside experts, prosecutors said. Levis also falsely claimed that Doral loan-sale agreements contained contractual caps that would limit the company’s losses on IOs if interest rates fell, the said.

The case is U.S. v. Levis, 08-cr-00181, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

A money manager from Brooklyn, New York, was found guilty of running a $45 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded hundreds of investors.

Philip Barry, 53, a resident of the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, began accepting money in 1978 from investors, guaranteeing fictional annual profits, according to prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch in Brooklyn. Instead, he used new investors’ money to pay earlier ones, prosecutors said.

“The defendant lied to clients to get their money, lied to clients about what he would do with their money and lied to clients about getting their money back,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. Nowak told jurors in his closing argument today.

The federal jury, which deliberated for less than four hours, convicted Barry today of all the counts he faced -- one of securities fraud and 33 of mail fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the securities-fraud conviction alone.

The criminal trial began Nov. 8. In a separate action, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Barry diverted some of the investor money to a mail-order pornography business. On Sept. 7, Barry sued the SEC for libel over the accusation. He has run Barry Publications for 30 years, selling “vinyl LP records, music cassette tapes, compact discs and DVDs,” he said.

No Bail

Barry was taken into custody. His lawyer, Lisa Hoyes, asked that she be allowed to put together a bail package for him. U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie, who presided over the trial, said bail couldn’t be considered today.

“For now the defendant is remanded,” Dearie said.

Hoyes didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the verdict.

Barry, who worked out of a Bay Ridge storefront, was accused of luring more than 800 investors into his Leverage Group, which claimed to be investing in stock options. His reported ending balance of more than $45 million far exceeded assets actually held, producing “substantial losses” for many investors, according to prosecutors.

Each December, Barry would figure a “guaranteed” rate of return for the following year, ranging from 12.55 percent to 16 percent, prosecutors said. When investors tried to withdraw money from their accounts, checks would often be returned due to insufficient funds or, in some cases, Barry ignored their requests altogether, prosecutors said.

Barry may have had “unorthodox” business practices but his investors were looking for outsized returns, Hoyes said in her closing argument.

Stocks, Options

One witness at the trial, Frank J. Monteleone, a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald LP in Memphis, Tennessee, who grew up in Bay Ridge, told jurors he gave Barry $100,000 to invest and Barry refused to return any money.

Nowak said in his closing argument that in 2002, when Barry first met with Monteleone and his wife, he told them he invested in options. In testimony in his bankruptcy case in 2009, Barry admitted that by 2001 he stopped investing in any stocks or options.

In August 2008, Barry went to federal prosecutors and told them he was invested only in land rather than options and that he couldn’t get approvals to develop the land, according to court papers. He also admitted he used money from new investors to pay off old ones, according to prosecutors.

“He knew he committed a crime,” Nowak said in his closing argument.

Boxes of Documents

Hoyes said Barry’s approaching prosecutors, his allowing them to go through “boxes and boxes” of his documents, his never fleeing the country and his “humble lifestyle” showed that he wasn’t a con man.

Dearie ruled before the trial began that Barry couldn’t call to the witness stand a Monticello, New York, real-estate broker to testify as an expert that Barry’s properties in Sullivan County, New York, about 100 miles north of Manhattan, would be worth $160 million if developed, showing he had no intent to defraud, according to court papers.

At a Nov. 3 pre-trial hearing, the broker, William Rieber, testified that the developed land would be worth about $225 million.

“He was invested in very valuable land in Sullivan County for the benefit of the investors,” Hoyes said in her closing argument.

Prosecutors say Barry bought the land for himself. The properties were auctioned off for $6.6 million in 2009, after he declared bankruptcy the previous year, according to the government.

Personal Expenses

In February 2009, after the scheme unraveled, Barry told his investors that the Leverage Group only held real estate, and not enough to cover account balances, according to prosecutors.

Barry also used investor money for personal expenses, including at home-improvement stores, restaurants and gas stations, the SEC said.

The criminal case is U.S. v. Barry, 09-cr-0833, the SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Barry, 09-cv-3860, and Barry’s suit against the SEC is Barry v. United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 10-cv-4071, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

Seattle defensive end Raheem Brock was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence just hours before the Seahawks traveled to Arizona to face the Cardinals.

Washington State Patrol Trooper Julie Startup confirms Brock, a former Temple standout and Dobbins graduate, was arrested early Saturday morning in Seattle. KCPQ-TV in Seattle first reported Brock's arrest.

Brock played in Seattle's 36-18 win over Arizona. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said yesterday he didn't know about Brock's arrest until after Sunday's game. Carroll says he spoke with Brock yesterday morning and the team will deal with it once all the information has been obtained.

Brock has 13 tackles and three sacks this season.

NOTEWORTHY

* Kansas City coach Todd Haley apologized for refusing to shake hands with Denver coach Josh McDaniels after the Chiefs' blowout loss the day before.

Haley made a single comment to McDaniels as the Denver coach held out his hand after the Broncos' 49-29 victory in Denver. Haley pointed his finger at him, turned and stomped away without shaking.

In his opening remarks to reporters yesterday, Haley offered his apology before he was asked about the incident which instantly became a hot topic around the league.

Haley declined to say what upset him.

Audio of the brief exchange between the two was provided to the Associated Press by WDAF-TV in Kansas City. McDaniels does not speak but Haley can clearly be heard saying as he pointed at the Denver coach and turned to walk away, "There's a lot of [expletive] being talked about you."

* New York Giants second-year receiver Ramses Barden broke his left ankle and also tore a ligament in the ankle in the 33-20 loss to the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night, coach Tom Coughlin said.

* Chad Pennington's latest shoulder injury has ended his season, but Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano says Chad Henne might be available for Thursday night's game against the Chicago Bears.

The Dolphins signed veteran Patrick Ramsey yesterday and placed Pennington on reserve-injured.

* Carolina rookie quarterback Jimmy Clausen's status for next week is uncertain because of a concussion. The Panthers were seething over the play that may have gotten Clausen hurt. They claim a couple of Tampa Bay players recklessly dived into the pile as Clausen was stuffed shy of the goal line on fourth down on Carolina's final offensive play Sunday in the Buccaneers' 31-16 win.

Receiver Steve Smith said Aqib Talib and Sean Jones "went head first into Jimmy." Replays showed Talib appeared to hit Clausen with a helmet-to-helmet hit. Smith then shoved Talib and was given a 15-yard penalty.

* Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress says Brett Favre is "sore" but has no plans to get an MRI on his throwing shoulder and should be ready to play against Green Bay on Sunday.

* Jerricho Cotchery has a "slight" tear in his left groin that could sideline the New York Jets wide receiver for the next game. Cotchery said an MRI exam revealed the injury, which occurred in overtime of the Jets' 26-20 victory in Cleveland on Sunday.

* Buffalo Bills coach Chan Gailey all but officially ruled out C.J. Spiller, the team's rookie first-round draft pick, from playing in Buffalo's game at Cincinnati on Sunday. Spiller injured a hamstring against the Bengals.

* Cleveland Browns starting linebacker Scott Fujita has an injured left knee ligament and Cleveland coach Eric Mangini says one of his defensive captains "could be out for a little while."

Mangini confirms Fujita injured a ligament but did not provide any other specifics. Mangini added that right guard Billy Yates is likely done for the season with a biceps injury.

After defending sales of a self-published book on pedophilia, online retail giant Amazon last night reversed course and pulled the book from its Kindle store.

The electronic book, "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct," by Philip R. Greaves II, went on sale on Oct. 28 and cost $4.79 to download.

"This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain rules for these adults to follow," the author wrote in the product description. "I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter [sic] sentences should they ever be caught," Greaves said in the product description.

The book quickly sparked a massive protest online, with thousands of Twitter users and Amazon customers calling for Amazon to remove the book, and some threatening to boycott the company altogether until it did.

Amazon did not respond to multiple requests for comment from ABCNews.com, but in a statement Wednesday, the company defended the book's place in its online store.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK SAID HE IS NOT ENCOURAGING PEDOPHILIA

"Let me assure you that Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions," Amazon told the technology blog TechCrunch. "Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable."

But it seems that Amazon has since changed its mind and is no longer selling the book online. Now, when you search for the book in the Amazon store, it still appears in search results, but when you actually click on the icon for the book, you see an error message.

"We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site," the message said.

When ABCNews.com spoke to the book's author Wednesday afternoon, Greaves said he had sold just one copy of the book. But according to TechCrunch, sales of the book skyrocketed after news of its controversy spread across the Internet.

Before Amazon pulled the book, it apparently shot to #96 on Amazon's Top 100 list. (As of this morning, it no longer appears on the bestseller list.)

Greaves, author of the book, said he was aware of the "stinging accusations" online, but argued that his critics are misunderstanding the point of his book.

Author: Book on Pedophilia Not Written From Personal Experience
"They're accusing me of wanting to hurt children. They're accusing me of encouraging pedophilia and all these other things. But that's not why I wrote the book," the 47-year-old from Pueblo, Colo., said.

"I wrote the book to establish guidelines so that people would behave in a manner that is non-injurious to each other, for one, and, for two, to communicate the fact that these people who are so different in maturation, etc., that when they develop relationships, they use certain principles that regular people, adults, would be well to attend."

Greaves, who was a nurse's aide until he retired because of a disability, said he was not encouraging pedophilia through his book, but, pointing to the case of Mary Kay Letourneau, the Washington state teacher who had an affair with her student, said he believed it was possible "to have a loving, sexual relationship with a child."

While the book was written from the perspective of an adult, he emphasized that he was not speaking from personal experience as a pedophile.

"The only personal perspective it was written from was that I was introduced to sex at the age of 7 by a 10-year-old girl. It was oral sex. And I carried on through that having that kind of sex with children until I was about 15," he said. "And everybody involved enjoyed it."

Author Said He Wanted 'That Kind of Notoriety
When asked why he wrote a "code of conduct" that appears to endorse an illegal, abusive act, he said, "I'm not saying I want them around children; I'm saying if they're there that's how I want them to behavior."

Still, Greaves said he understood why hundreds of people on Amazon alone have posted messages condemning him and his book.

"I can see where they would come to that kind of conclusion and to a certain extent I wanted that kind of notoriety to affect the book. ... I wanted it to effect sales," he said.

When ABCNews.com spoke with Greaves Wednesday, he said he had sold just one copy.

"It hasn't increased sales; it just has a lot of negative responses coming in," he said.

Before Amazon removed the book from its store, more than 3,000 customers left comments on Amazon's site, most protesting the controversial book.

"As a mother of a child who has been molested, shame on Amazon for allowing such garbage to be sold on its site," wrote "thirtysomething."

"The author of this book is a predator and should never have been allowed to write or promote this trash that is called a book of information. How many children will be assaulted because of this? Amazon--take it off your site."

JACKSON, Miss. -- A man who was declared dead 16 years ago is now under arrest and facing kidnapping charges.

53-year-old Thomas Steven Sanders was transported to Alexandria, La., after being arrested in Mississippi over the weekend.

Officials believe Sanders kidnapped 12-year-old Lexis Roberts, whose body was found in Louisiana last month.

Another set of remains believed to be those of her mother, 31-year-old Suellen Roberts, were discovered in Arizona.

According to officials, they were last seen over the Labor Day weekend with Sanders at the Grand Canyon.

Sanders was declared legally dead in Mississippi in 1994 after his family, who had not seen or heard from him in years, filed a petition with the courts

Sanders met the mother and daughter in Las Vegas.

Officials say the bullets used to kill Lexis Roberts were consistent with ammunition bought by Sanders at a department store in September.

A former Yankee hero caught a break Thursday when a judge tossed out one of two manslaughter charges and told jurors they could even convict him of simple drunken-driving.

It was an emotional day for Jim Leyritz, 47, who is charged with killing 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch in a 2007 crash. He wept into his hands during closing arguments as prosecutor Stefanie Newman said he had time to stop before he slammed into Veitch's car but was too drunk to react.

She pointed to evidence suggesting Leyritz had consumed 11 or 12 shots of tequila and vodka before he got behind the wheel.

"If he ran the light, and the victim had a green light, then he caused this crash," Newman said. "He could have avoided this crash. He had a good four seconds of yellow to stop."

Prosecution witnesses estimated that Leyritz's blood-alcohol level was as high as 0.19 - more than twice Florida's 0.08 limit.

Defense lawyer David Bogenschutz said the tests were "mishandled and unreliable" because they were taken three hours after the crash. He argued a concussion Leyritz suffered may have skewed the results.

Veitch also was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.18 shortly after the crash.

Earlier, the defense convinced Judge Marc Gold to dismiss the charge of manslaughter while driving while impaired - arguing prosecutors didn't prove he was physically incapable of driving.

Leyritz was still looking at a charge of manslaughter while driving under the influence, which is based on the level of alcohol in his blood, not his behavior.

The judge also told jurors they could consider a lesser charge of just driving under the influence.

Troubled Yankees hero Jim Leyritz played defense on Monday, claiming he was sober during a 2007 crash that killed a 30-year-old woman.

Leyritz lawyer David Bogenschutz said video and phone records will show Fredia Ann Veitch was speeding and ran a red light.

Leyritz, 46, best known for a dramatic 1996 World Series home run, faces up to 15 years if convicted of DUI manslaughter.

Bogenschutz said blood-alcohol tests were "mishandled and unreliable" because they were taken three hours after the crash. He said the concussion Leyritz suffered may have skewed the tests.

Prosecution witnesses estimated that Leyritz's blood-alcohol level was as high as 0.19 when the crash occurred, more than twice Florida's 0.08 limit.

Veitch also was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.18 shortly after the crash.