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Lawyer of Drunken NYPD Agent Says Bridge Crash Not Caused by Booze: Report

By Allegra Hobbs | March 22, 2017 11:33am
 Amanda Miner was out celebrating her 21st birthday when a car she was in crashed, police said.
Amanda Miner was out celebrating her 21st birthday when a car she was in crashed, police said.
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LOWER EAST SIDE — The lawyer representing the drunk, off-duty NYPD traffic agent who killed a 21-year-old girl when he crashed his car on the Williamsburg Bridge last week has argued bad road conditions — not alcohol — are to blame for the tragedy, according to reports.

Stefan Hoyte, 26, was charged with drunken driving and vehicular manslaughter for the fatal crash that killed Amanda Miner the morning of March 16, with sources saying his blood alcohol content was .103 — well above the legal limit of .08. 

However, Hoyte's attorney says booze did not cause his client to veer into a barrier and column while driving over the bridge.

“I don’t see any evidence that it was caused by alcohol,” attorney Scott Cerbin told the New York Post Tuesday. “There’s a substantial amount of physical evidence that this was an accident.”

Hoyte was driving an Infiniti G37 toward Brooklyn at 60 mph —nearly double the speed limit on the bridge — when he hit a barrier and then a support column around 3:15 a.m., shearing the car in half, police and prosecutors said.

The crash severed Miner's body in two and flung her into the road, according to Hoyte's criminal complaint. 

Hoyte admitted to a police officer he'd had a few drinks before getting behind the wheel that night, according to the complaint.

But his attorney said the bridge was missing a reflector and that ice and snow fom a blizzard that hit the city earlier that week created unsafe conditions, the Post reported.

“We have this terrible snow storm, blizzard and record ice and it really is just a horrible accident,” Cerbin told the paper.

Hoyte, who has been suspended from his job as an NYPD traffic agent in Queens, posted his $100,000 bail days after his arrest, Department of Corrections records show.

He is due back in court May 8.