A former NYPD sergeant who drove drunk the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway about 10 miles north of Bronxville in January, killing a 61-year-old Peekskill man heading home from work, pleaded guilty on Aug. 19 to aggravated vehicular homicide and second-degree manslaughter in Westchester County Court.
Tiffany Howell, 48, of Warwick, Orange County, entered the plea before Judge Anne B. Bianchi, according to an announcement from New York Attorney General Letitia James. Howell faces four to 12 years in prison when she returns for sentencing on Oct. 28.
She waived her right to appeal.
The crash killed Manuel Boitel, a doorman who had worked 30 years at a condominium building on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Boitel was driving north on the Taconic near mile marker 3.7 in the Town of Mount Pleasant, close to the Saw Mill River Parkway interchange, when Howell's car struck his head-on at 11:37 p.m. on Jan. 22. Boitel was pronounced dead at Westchester Medical Center.
Howell was traveling south in the northbound lanes at more than 50 mph with a blood alcohol content of at least 0.18, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08, the attorney general's office said.
Who was Manuel Boitel
Boitel, of Peekskill, had worked as a doorman at 340 E. 64th St. and was a member of 32BJ SEIU. He was heading home after his night shift when the crash occurred. His family told CBS News in January that Boitel had regularly donated to the National Police Defense Foundation and had once dreamed of becoming an NYPD officer himself.
"The fact that it was an officer ... that's what stings the most. He was a big advocate for them," his son Marvin Boitel said on Jan. 23.
Boitel's family discovered the crash after his wife noticed his GPS tracker showed him stationary on the Taconic for over an hour. His two sons drove to the scene in the early morning hours of Jan. 23.
The officer's background
Howell joined the NYPD in January 2008 and had been a sergeant since 2022, assigned to the Crime Control Strategies division. She was an 18-year veteran of the department and had been on the promotion list for lieutenant before the crash, according to Our Town.
She was off duty at the time and was placed on modified duty afterward, relieved of her gun and badge. In the days following the crash, Howell filed retirement paperwork, though NYPD rules normally prevent officers from retiring while subject to an open investigation, ABC 7 reported in January.
On the night of the crash, the NYPD Holy Name Society held a $150-a-head fundraiser with an open bar at a venue on Central Park Avenue in Greenburgh, beginning at 7 p.m. Howell was listed as treasurer of the organization's Manhattan-Bronx-Staten Island branch. Whether she attended the event has not been confirmed.
What happens next
The case was investigated by the attorney general's Office of Special Investigation, which is required by state law to assess every incident in which a police officer, on or off duty, may have caused a person's death.
Judge Bianchi continued Howell's bail at a $250,000 bond, or a $500,000 partially secured bond, with a $100,000 cash alternative. Sentencing is set for Oct. 28 in Westchester County Court.
The crash site in Mount Pleasant sits roughly half a mile from where a wrong-way driver killed eight people on the Taconic on July 26, 2009. Residents can report impaired drivers by calling 911.
