Defendant pleads guilty in drunken crash that killed scooter-riding Yonkers teen
A former Yonkers public works employee pleaded guilty Thursday in a drunken crash that killed a 16-year-old Yonkers boy riding an electric scooter last year.
Stephen Dolan, 47, admitted that he was drunk and fled the scene early on Aug. 3, 2022, after crashing his Chevrolet Express van into Christopher "CJ" Hackett on McLean Avenue. Dolan had spent hours before the early morning crash playing darts and drinking at a bar in the Bronx.
He pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and driving while intoxicated, choking up when he acknowledged to acting state Supreme Court Justice James McCarty that he caused Hackett's death.
McCarty promised him a state prison term of 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years after prosecutors sought the maximum 2 1/3 to seven years.
Assistant District Attorney James Bavero requested that Dolan be taken into custody immediately but McCarty allowed the defendant a week to get his affairs in order, including arranging for the care of his teenage daughter.
Sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 14.
According to court records in the case, Dolan was eastbound on McLean Avenue when he struck Hackett head-on and stopped briefly before driving off. Hackett, who was going to start his junior year at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, was taken to Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx where he died the following day.
Police recovered a Chevrolet emblem at the scene and reviewed surveillance and city video footage and license plate readers to identify the van and determine it was registered to Dolan. The van, with significant damage including a cracked windshield, dented hood and a missing front emblem, was found on Saw Mill River Road the following day.
When detectives interviewed him later that day, according to the documents, Dolan said he was on the Alibi Bar darts team and played a match at Behan's Public House in the Bronx where he "drank more than usual." He claimed not to have remembered driving that night but did recount a dream about hitting a traffic cone or barrel on a dark road.
Another surveillance video from just under half a mile away from the crash scene shows Dolan moments earlier appearing to dance with a beer in his hand as he stands in front of his van, according to the court document.
Dolan was fired from his DPW job two weeks after the accident, a city spokeswoman said Thursday.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Man pleads guilty in drunk crash that killed Yonkers teen on scooter
