Gardineer sentenced for breaking Leandra’s Law

ALBANY COUNTY — Graham Gardineer, 41, of Guilderland, was sentenced on Jan. 8 by Judge Stephen W. Herrick in Albany County Court to one-and-two-thirds to five years in state prison for aggravated driving while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle, a felony; his sentence will run consecutive to one to three years in state prison for violation of probation, according to a release from the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.

Gardineer was also sentenced to three years of mandatory ignition interlock device use and an 18-month minimum license revocation subject to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, and fined $2,000, the release said.

Gardineer was arrested on Oct. 9, 2015, by an Albany County Sheriff’s Office patrolman near Route 157 and Barber Lane in Berne, after a complainant called about a drunk driver, according to the release. After being stopped, Gardineer showed signs of intoxication, failed field sobriety tests, had a blood alcohol content of .09, and was driving without an ignition interlock device, in violation of probation from a previous DWI charge, according to the release.

Gardineer was charged with the felony for violating Leandra's Law, a child passenger protection act in New York that charges an automatic felony on the first offense of driving drunk with a person age 15 or younger inside the vehicle with a blood alcohol content at 0.08. The law is named for Leandra Rosado who was 11 when she was killed in 2009, in New York City, the passenger in a car driven by an allegedly drunk driver that flipped over.

— Jo E. Prout

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