by Thaddeus Flint
Brendan Hoffman, the 22 year old Stephentown man found guilty of vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a 2012 accident, received a sentence of 5 to 15 years at his sentencing hearing on April 25.
[private]Christopher Baker, a 24 year old RPI student and son of Stephentown attorney Brian Baker, was thrown from a car in the early morning hours of June 28, 2012. Hoffman left the scene of the accident, hiding out at a friend’s house for hours while Bakers body lay in a ditch unnoticed by responders who were unaware anyone else was in the wreck.
Hoffman, who was escorted into the Rensselaer County Courthouse in Troy in a prison jump suit and shackled in chains, choked back tears as Brian Baker and Nancy Peterson, Christopher Baker’s mother, spoke of their loss.
“He would have wanted the truth of his death to be validated,” read Peterson. “Chris would want to be waking up to a new day. A day full of hope and sunshine. A day full of old friends, family, routine and familiar surroundings.”
“Our lives are forever changed,” said Brian Baker. “I have never in my life heard the cries and shrieks of a human, that was my daughter, when she found out her beloved brother Chris was dead.” Brian Baker said the family is forced to think of the accident every day, as they drive past the scene of the crash to their home on Cranston Hill Road.
Defense attorney Peter Moschetti read a statement prepared by Hoffman who was reportedly unable to read it on his own.
“I apologize to them for everything I did that played a role in the events that took place,” read Moschetti. “Chris was a wonderful person, the best. He did not deserve to die this way. He was my best friend, and his death is something that I will live with for the rest of my life.”
For Rensselaer County Assistant DA Michael Shanley, however, the apology was too little too late. Hoffman already had a DWI on his record and had seemingly learned nothing from that conviction.
“He was stopped going 91 miles an hour in a 55 mile an hour zone. He had marijuana in his possession. He ran from the police during the course of that traffic stop, and he had a blood alcohol content of .20,” Shanley said of Hoffman’s first DWI conviction. “This was not an accident where the defendant made a mistake once. This was a course of conduct,” Shanley said after sentencing.
Moschetti is reportedly preparing to appeal the conviction. “I do not believe that Brendan was driving that night,” he said to Judge Debra Young at the sentencing. “I don’t believe that proof established that.”[/private]