The New Jersey driver accused of fatally mowing down NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother while drunk lost a bid to have his case tossed over an allegedly botched blood-alcohol test.
Salem County Judge Michael Silvanio Monday denied Sean Higgins’ request to dismiss aggravated manslaughter and reckless vehicular homicide charges for the tragic Aug. 29, 2024, crash on the grounds any dispute about his blood-alcohol levels should be decided by a jury at trial.
“A jury at trial is the ultimate fact-finder and is the best positioned party to weigh conflicting evidence, including expert testimony regarding BAC levels,” the judge said.
Higgins’ lawyers have been fighting since February to throw out the case, arguing prosecutors’ claims that 45-year-old Army veteran’s BAC was .087 the night of the wreck were inaccurate because the test used incomplete blood — and that he was actually below the legal limit of .08.
Richard Klineburger told the judge Monday the grand jury that indicted Higgins wasn’t told that the blood used for the test was clotted, forcing a serum test rather than the widely accepted whole blood test. And it wasn’t explained to the grand jury that the chemist had to convert the reading to compensate for the higher results that serum tests yield.
Higgins’ team claimed his BAC was actually .075.
“It is a major issue that I believe should have been properly explained to the grand jury,” Klineburger said.
Prosecutors only divulged to the defense last week that they used the conversion at all despite the fact that the BAC issue was raised in February, Klineburger argued.
Prosecutor Michael Mestern said the chemist did convert the reading of Higgins’ BAC to compensate for the inflated reading of the serum test.
“This is a simple case of a battle of the experts,” Mestern said. “The testing of the blood was sound and the results was .087 percent.”
The judge said that Higgins’ team can still seek to hold a hearing and call experts on the validity of the BAC test.
Higgins — who appeared in court wearing orange jail clothes and handcuffed at the front of his body — has pleaded not guilty in the case accusing him of drunkenly trying to pass a car in Oldmans Township and careening into Johnny, 31, and his 29-year-old brother Matthew as they were cycling on the side of the road.
The brothers had been riding home from their sister’s wedding rehearsal dinner. She was scheduled to be hitched the next day.
Higgins faces 72 years behind bars if convicted on all charges.
Higgins — who served in the Iraq war — lost a prior request to have the case thrown out on the grounds that the brothers were drunker than him at the time of the accident.
