Johnson sentenced in Leandra’s Law felony
GUILDERLAND — On June 23, Charles Johnson, 32, of Troy, was sentenced in Albany County Court to four months in Albany County’s jail and five years of felony probation under Leandra’s Law; police had charged him with driving while intoxicated on Feb. 13 with two young children in the vehicle, according to a release from the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.
He was also ordered by Judge Thomas A. Breslin to pay a $500 fine.
Johnson pleaded guilty on April 11 to aggravated driving while intoxicated: child in vehicle, the release said.
The district attorney’s office says events unfolded this way:
Johnson was at a tollbooth on Interstate 90 in Guilderland at about 9:25 p.m. on Feb. 13 when police noticed that two children — aged 3 and 5 — in the backseat were not wearing seatbelts. Johnson showed physical signs of intoxication and confessed to admitted drinking alcohol earlier in the day at his home. A search of his vehicle turned up an open container of alcohol, the release said, and Johnson failed several field-sobriety tests. He registered a blood-alcohol concentration of .10 approximately an hour after the stop.
Leandra’s Law, which dates from 2009, is named for Leandra Rosada, who was 11 when she was killed in a car that flipped on the Hudson Henry Parkway in New York City; the car was driven by an allegedly drunk woman, a friend of the child’s mother. The law makes driving while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle an automatic felony.