Under Leandra rsquo s Law Harder pleads guilty will get 1 to 3 years



GUILDERLAND — A Guilderland man pleaded guilty to driving drunk with minors in the car, and, on Tuesday, he was sentenced to one to three years in state prison.

Matthew Harder, 42, was arrested last August, after police received a report of an erratic driver, and found Harder’s 2006 Mazda sedan abandoned on Catherine Street, where it had struck a curb.

Harder was observed walking away from the car, near Morton Avenue and Oneida Terrace, in Albany.

Harder’s 13-year-old daughter and her friend, who was the same age, were in the car as passengers at the time Harder hit the curb; no one was injured in the one-car accident. Harder left the girls in the car when he walked away after the accident, police said.

Police discovered an open container of alcohol in the vehicle, and Harder failed a field sobriety test. He was charged with two counts of aggravated driving while intoxicated, and one count each of driving while intoxicated, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, and endangering the welfare of a child.

Harder was charged under Leandra’s Law, which makes it a felony to drive drunk with a minor in the car.

Leandra’s Law took effect in December 2009, and was named after 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, who died in an accident on the Henry Hudson Parkway. First-time offenders charged with driving-while-intoxicated felonies can sometimes plead down to a charge of driving while ability impaired, a violation, but Leandra’s Law allows defendants to please down only to a misdemeanor DWI charge.

Harder had four previous convictions related to driving while intoxicated, and his license had been revoked at the time of the accident, said Cecilia Logue, spokeswoman for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.

He had multiple other convictions, said Logue, but she declined commenting on the nature of them.

In February, Harder pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated driving while intoxicated, with a child in the vehicle, a felony, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, according to a release from the District Attorney’s office.

In addition to his one-to-three year prison sentence, he faces $1,000 in court fines and surcharges, a license revocation, and, upon release from custody, he will be required to have an Ignition Interlock device installed in his car for three years.

Logue said the requirement of the Ignition Interlock device — a mechanism, like a breathalyzer, installed in the dashboard, which the driver must exhale into before the car will start — was added to Leandra’s Law in 2010.

More Guilderland News

  • The Altamont Fair will have a holiday lights show put on by Magic of Lights, a private company that produces light shows around the country. Plans to have the event organized by the Police Athletic League, which had put on a holiday lights show for more than two decades and uses the money for charity, fell through.  

  • “There was considerable enthusiasm shown,” The Enterprise reported the day after the charter meeting, “and the boys all enjoyed the excellent talks given by” a group of local dignitaries. “Considerable enthusiasm” is expected once again as Helderberg Post 977 is due to celebrate its centennial with a formal dinner on Nov. 3. 

  • The demand for emergency response is growing, with a record 6,717 calls answered last year. “We’ve got an aging population,” Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber said at the ceremony, “and the key was how do we do it right,” he said of establishing a town-run service.

The Altamont Enterprise is focused on hyper-local, high-quality journalism. We produce free election guides, curate readers' opinion pieces, and engage with important local issues. Subscriptions open full access to our work and make it possible.