A Manhattan judge yesterday had harsh words — and an even harsher sentence — for an epileptic, off-his-meds garbage truck driver who lost control of his 20-ton rig and killed a vacationing British couple last year.
Auvryn Scarlett, 54, was a “time bomb” and “an abomination” who committed a “profoundly irresponsible act,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers said in handing down the maximum sentence allowed by state law: 20 years to life.
“You turned yourself into a time bomb ready to explode at any moment on the streets of New York,” Carruthers told Scarlett. “Which is exactly what happened.”
Scarlett was convicted last month of murdering Jackie Timmons and Andrew Hardie of Yeovil, England. Prosecutors brought the charge because he’d lied about his epilepsy for 10 years on licensing paperwork, and had gone off his seizure meds two weeks before the crash.
“You did so for the basest of reasons,” the judge said of Scarlett’s admitted excuse for not taking Dilantin: “It interfered with your enjoyment of liquor.”
Both in their 40s, and together raising their youngest children from prior marriages, Timmons and Hardie came to New York in February 2008 for a romantic get-away.
They were less than 100 feet from their hotel the day before Valentine’s Day when Scarlett’s truck — twice the size of a city sanitation vehicle — jumped a curb on West 35th Street.
“It was a giant, huge beast hurtling down the street,” Carruthers said, referring to a surveillance video of the crash that had been played during the trial.
The truck snapped a lamppost “as if it were a mere twig,” Carruthers said.
“We see three people, walking abreast, and then they aren’t there,” the judge told the courtroom, in a tone of hushed incredulity. “They were gone. They simply were gone.”
The third pedestrian, a stranger to the couple named Abayomi Henderson, suffered two broken legs. Timmons was decapitated — unable to be mourned except in a closed coffin.
“In the blink of an eye, two lovers, walking hand in hand, were torn asunder,” the judge said. “One can’t help but be profoundly saddened and bewildered by this awful, awful case.”
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Ryan said Scarlett drove his truck for a New Jersey carting company since 1996 despite his epilepsy, barreling through Times Square, Herald Square and Columbus Circle five days a week.
“Every day he knew this could happen,” Ryan said. “He was taking everyone’s lives in his hands.”