FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A prosecution witness in the case against former slugger Jim Leyritz gave mixed signals this afternoon, testifying that the ex-Yankee did not run a red light before crashing his car.
Although Bruce Barger, who was in the passenger seat alongside Leyritz at the time of the crash, said the ballplayer had been distracted, he did testify that the light was yellow as they entered the interaction
“No question in my mind,” he said during cross-examination. “It was yellow.”
The stunning testimony came after the DUI manslaughter case against Leyritz got briefly thrown off track after an asleep-at-the-switch prosecutor didn’t object to questions about how much the ex-Yank’s victim was drinking before she died.
“I’m telling you, this is problematic,” fumed Judge Marc Gold at prosecutor Stefanie Newman this morning after excusing jurors for lunch and saying he needed to consider how to handle the foul-up.
After lunch, Gold allowed the trial to resume, instead of declaring a mistrial.
Gold in a pre-trial ruling had barred toxicology evidence that Leyritz’s victim Fredia Ann Veitch had a blood-alcohol level of .18 when the former Bronx Bomber plowed his Ford Expedition into her Mitsubishi Montero on Dec. 28, 2007, killing her.
Gold had said Veitch’s level of drunkeness — which coincidentally was the same level as that of Leyritz’s — was irrelevant to the question of whether Leyritz had run a red light or tried to beat a yellow light right before the crash.
But during testimony this morning by a friend of Veitch’s named Kevin Lane, Leyritz’s lawyer David Bogenschutz repeatedly asked Lane about the amount of alcohol the 30-year-old victim drank in the hours leading up to the crash.
Lane told Bogenschutz that he saw Veitch knock back between four and five drinks, including shots of the tequila Patron, and that she was out of his eyesight at a bar for another 45 minutes, when she might have consumed more drinks.
Newman, the prosecutor, never objected to that line of questioning, allowing jurors to infer that Veitch may have been drunk before the accident.
And after Bogenshutz finished questioning Lane about Veitch’s drinking, Newman stood up and asked him questions along the same line.
Specifically, Newman asked Lane to describe how Veitch was behaving at the bar, Fat Cat’s.
The judge told Lane not to answer, and excusing the jury from the courtroom.
Gold, clearly angry, then asked the prosecutor, “Do you consider her condition relevant?”
“He [Bogenschutz] asked 15 to 20 questions about what drinks she had, unobjected,” Gold said. “And now you’re asking about her condition.”
“My ruling is that her condition was not relevant as to whether the defendant ran the red light,” Gold said.
A flustered Newman replied, “Judge, I’ll withdraw the question.”
But Gold wasn’t having any of that, shooting back: “They heard the question.”
“I’m telling you, this is problematic, given my previous rulings,” Gold said, before adding that he would consider the problem over lunch.
But afterward, Gold allowed the trial to continue.