Ralph Tarchine, 18, of Bedford was charged with driving while intoxicated in Friday's crash. He was arraigned yesterday at West-chester Medical Center by a Mount Pleasant judge, who restricted his driving privileges. Tarchine still has not been charged in the Dec. 10 accident in which a 17-year-old passenger, Michael Plunkett, was killed. The Westchester County forensics lab confirmed within days of the December crash that Tarchine had marijuana and other illegal drugs in his system, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Millard Hyland, who heads the lab, said yesterday. They received the final results of the toxicology tests last week, he said, and immediately shared those by phone with police and the county District Attorney's Office, as they had done with the preliminary findings. "We kept talking to the police and the DA's office, telling them what we had," Hyland said. "It's not that they were kept in the dark." Prosecutors said the preliminary results were not enough to charge Tarchine, adding that they did not receive written confirmation of the lab's final toxicology results until Monday. Bedford Police Chief Chris Menzel said his department also did not receive the written report until Monday and insisted that police had never been informed of the positive drug tests before the second accident. Regardless, Menzel said, "just because someone has a presence of alcohol or drugs in their system does not necessarily mean they were intoxicated or impaired, according to the law." "I'm really dismayed the medical examiner would come out and say this information is true, which it is not," Menzel said. "We're outraged. It makes us look like we're not doing our job here." Prosecutors said they were told Jan. 25 of the toxicology results but that a written report dated that day — which they needed before pursuing any charges — was not faxed to the District Attorney's Office until Monday. Tarchine, a Fox Lane High School senior whose father is a New Castle building inspector, was driving his parents' Saab convertible on Hopp Ground Lane late Friday when he smashed through a utility pole and then struck a tree, police said. Both he and passenger Daniel Gibbs, 17, of Mount Kisco were ejected, with Tarchine's legs getting pinned under the car. Gibbs has been released from the hospital. Tarchine's driver's license was suspended by Judge Robert Ponzini yesterday because his blood-alcohol level was above 0.08 percent following Friday's crash. He will be allowed to drive to and from school, work and religious services. Prosecutors asked for $25,000 bail, but Ponzini set it at $3,000. Tarchine is expected to get out of the hospital later this week. On Monday, three days after the crash, police confirmed that Tarchine also was the driver in last month's crash that killed Plunkett, a Ridgefield., Conn., resident who grew up in the Mount Kisco-Bedford area. Tarchine was driving a sport utility vehicle on Route 22 near Capt. Theale Road when it crashed and rolled over. Police had refused to release his identity after the fatal crash. The results from blood and urine samples, taken from Tarchine at the hospital, were delivered to the medical examiner Dec. 12. Within a day, the toxicologist determined he had drugs in his system. Then additional tests were conducted to determine the quantity of those drugs, a process that typically takes a month to complete. "All of this is time consuming. Of course this is not the only specimen police and the DA were waiting for," Hyland said. "We received over 57 samples in the month of January, and everyone wants their results, too." The final results were delayed because there were problems in testing the marijuana, he said. "We didn't feel the results were correct, twice," Hyland said. "So it took an extra two weeks. We didn't want to stop until we got it correct." Police elsewhere in Westchester said making an initial arrest would have been a much simpler call if the case involved drunken driving and test results showed a blood-alcohol level of more than 0.05 percent, the standard for driving while ability impaired. Tarchine's blood-alcohol level was lower than that after the first accident, authorities said. "It's not black and white as it might be with alcohol," said Greenburgh Chief John Kapica, who was unfamiliar with specific details of the Bedford case. "You may have drugs (in the system), but did it impair? It's not such a clear call and you may want to wait until you have all the information." Kapica said a key factor is what police saw when they responded to the accident. An initial charge of DWAI-drugs would be more likely if the tests showed drugs in the system and police had observed drug paraphernalia or the driver slurring his speech. No such conditions were evident following the Dec. 10 crash, authorities said, although there was enough suspicion to order the tests. In a similar case two years ago, a White Plains teenager was not charged for seven weeks after a December 2003 crash that killed his best friend who was a passenger in the car, even though marijuana was found in his pocket and in the car. Andre Russ was charged when police received toxicology results showing he had marijuana in his blood at the time of the accident and he eventually pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide.
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: February 1, 2006)
BEDFORD — Police and prosecutors were told last week that the teenage driver involved in a fatal crash last month had taken illegal drugs, Westchester County's chief medical examiner says, but did not charge him before he was involved in another major accident late Friday.