He’s sorry for their loss, but not for driving away.
The postal driver accused of leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the death of lawyer Marilyn Dershowitz took the stand in his own defense in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday, extending his sympathies to the victim’s family for the first time — but standing by his decision to drive off.
“First and foremost, I want to say to the Dershowitz family, I’m sorry for your loss,” Ian Clement announced from the witness stand, looking straight into the audience at the victim’s husband.
The spouse, Nathan Dershowitz — brother of noted O.J. Simpson “Dream Team” lawyer Alan Dershowitz and himself a lawyer — showed no reaction.
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who famously helped win an acquittal for Simpson, has not attended the weeklong trial, but hardly a day has gone by that his name has not been invoked.
Defense lawyer John Arlia told Justice Ruth Pickholz that in summations Wednesday that he intends to argue that the Manhattan DA’s Office succumbed to pressure from the powerful legal family in prosecuting a “specious” leaving-the-scene case.
Prosecutors have countered that they’ve done no such bowing. In fact, they argue, the Dershowitz family tried — and failed — in repeated phone calls to pressure the DA into pressing even more serious, vehicular-homicide charges.
Clement, a 64-year-old father of two, has insisted he had no idea he had run over the 68-year-old woman and her bicycle as they came in contact on a stretch of West 29th Street outside a busy, truck-jammed US Postal Service depot in July 2011.
“I felt a bump, and horns honking. I slowed, checked my mirrors, and noticed that there were cars stopped,” Clement said. , an account substantiated by surveillance video“I slowed, checked my mirrors and noticed that there were cars stopped.”
He never saw the bicyclist, either upright to his side or fallen afterward, he insisted. Marilyn Dershowitz had suffered mortal injuries to her head and torso, and was dying.
“Because I wasn’t sure that I had been involved in an accident . . . I wasn’t sure if I was involved,” Clement said. “Did you believe at that point that your vehicle was involved in an accident,” his lawyer asked.
“No, I did not,” he said. “For safety reasons they ask us not to leave our vehicle,” unless there is actual knowledge of being involved in an accident, he told jurors.
Even after he picked up his mail at a nearby depot — and saw the chaos of emergency vehicles in the street — he still drove away, as directed by nearby cops, he said.
“Did it dawn on you that you were involved in an accident?” his lawyer asked.
“No,” he said, “I did not.”
In cross examining Clement, assistant district attorney Erin LaFarge walked the driver through a list of things he’d run over in his 20 years of driving postal vehicles, including pot holes and garbage pail lids, each also producing a “bump.” But none of these bumps were impressive enough to cause him to pull over and put on his hazard lights, he admitted.
The bump that was Marilyn Dershowitz and her bicycle was a bump like no other, the prosecutor made Clement concede.
“You don’t pull your truck over every time you feel a bump, or hear a horn honking, right?” the prosecutor asked. “No,” Clement agreed. “You look in your mirror and you keep driving, right? You don’t pull over,” she continued. “I hear honking all the time, right,” Clement agreed. “You keep driving, right?” she asked. “Right,” he responded.
Clement testified that it was only when he learned hours later that there had been a serious accident that he began to think, “that there’s a possibility I could have been involved.”
Jurors are expected to begin deliberations by day’s end Wednesday. To find Clement guilty under the state’s vehicle and traffic law, jurors must agree with prosecutors that Clement drove off despite either knowing or having cause to know that personal injury had been caused to another person.