{"id":325276,"date":"2026-08-19T21:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325276\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T21:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:16:10","slug":"former-nypd-sergeant-pleads-guilty-to-drunk-driving-taconic-crash-that-killed-nyc-doorman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325276\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NYPD sergeant pleads guilty to drunk driving Taconic crash that killed NYC doorman"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former NYPD sergeant admitted on Wednesday to killing a beloved Manhattan doorman during a wrong-way, drunk-driving crash<\/a> on a Westchester highway, officials said.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Howell, 48, pleaded guilty during a hearing at Westchester County court to aggravated vehicular homicide and second-degree manslaughter<\/a> in connection with the Jan. 22 crash. She faces between 4 and 12 years in prison at her upcoming sentencing.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Howell\u2019s blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit when her Infiniti, which was traveling the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway, plowed into Manuel Boitel\u2019s Toyota RAV 4 shortly before midnight.<\/p>\n

Medics rushed Boitel,61, to Westchester Medical Center, where he died.<\/p>\n

\"ManuelManuel Boitel, pictured, was killed in a head-on collision with an off-duty NYPD sergeant driving the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester County. (GoFundMe)<\/p>\n

Jonathan Roberts, an attorney for Boitel\u2019s family, said Howell \u201cdedicated her career to enforcing the very laws she violated that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than anyone, she understood the consequences of making that choice. Yet she chose to do so, and Manuel Boitel lost his life as a result,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

While Boitel\u2019s family respects the court\u2019s decision, \u201cthey believe the sentence does not adequately reflect what she, of all people, should have understood about the consequences of her actions\u2014or the profound loss their family has suffered,\u201d the attorney added.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors for the state attorney general\u2019s office,<\/a> which investigates deaths in which police officers may be at fault, said Howell, an 18-year veteran, was recorded at a Scarsdale social event before the crash that showed her having several drinks at an open bar. She later left alone.<\/p>\n

Howell initially drove north on the parkway\u2019s northbound lanes before reversing course and heading in the wrong direction, causing the crash, according to reports.<\/p>\n

\"AA landscape view of the Taconic Parkway, looking southbound, as it winds its way through the rural landscape between the Hudson River Valley and the Catskills in 2023. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein\/Corbis via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Boitel, meanwhile, was returning to his home in Peekskill\u00a0 from his job as a doorman at Manhattan\u2019s St. Tropez luxury condominium building on E. 64th St. near First Ave.<\/p>\n

According to CBS News, Boitel\u2019s wife noticed that her husband\u2019s GPS tracker seemed stuck in the same spot on the Taconic State Parkway for more than an hour. Their sons drove to the location, saw the wreckage and recognized their father\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

Relatives said that in his younger years, Boitel had dreamed of becoming a cop.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond the obvious grief, there\u2019s a deep and painful irony here,\u201d Roberts told the Daily News days after the crash. \u201cManny had enormous respect for law enforcement and even dreamed of becoming an officer himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howell, a married mother of two, resigned from the NYPD in March, two years before she would have received her full pension.<\/p>\n

By resigning before she could be fired, Howell remains entitled to a portion of her pension, which she\u2019ll be able to access in early 2028, officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former NYPD sergeant admitted on Wednesday to killing a beloved Manhattan doorman during a wrong-way, drunk-driving crash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2214,9,56,63,65,64,103,32611,122487],"class_list":["post-325276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-crash","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-taconic-state-parkway","tag-tiffany-howell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}