Patchogue Man Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter in Fatal 2013 Crash

A Patchogue man who was driving while high on drugs when he plowed head-on into another vehicle in Sayville in 2013–killing one person and seriously injuring another–pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Friday, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said.

Thomas Herman, 48, will be sentenced to 21 years in prison in May, Spota said.

Prosecutors say Herman was driving while high on PCP, morphine and other drugs when he collided head-on with a car driven by Sam Longo of West Islip, killing Longo, 82, and seriously injuring Longo’s passenger, Anne Gilbert, 79, of Oakdale.

The crash occurred in January 2013 on Montauk Highway in Sayville.

A grand jury indicted Herman for murder in the second degree by depraved indifference, aggravated vehicular homicide, and other crimes. He pleaded guilty to first degree manslaughter on Friday.

Spota said the enormity of the legal burden to prove a person guilty of murder by “depraved indifference” beyond a reasonable doubt was illustrated recently by the acquittal by a jury on a murder count for Babylon resident Michael Grasing.

Grasing had a blood alcohol content of at least four times the legal limit–.32–when he crashed into a Lindenhurst teenager’s vehicle in 2012, killing her instantly. After a lengthy trial, the jury convicted Grasing of aggravated vehicular homicide, a sentence with a minimum punishment of eight and one-third years.

“Incredibly,“ Spota said, “the current law makes Grasing eligible for parole after only seven years behind bars. Even if he’s turned down, he’ll appear before the parole board every year thereafter, which is a terrible burden his victim’s family has to face.”

“Mr. Herman’s admission of guilt to this terrible crime means he’ll spend more than two decades in an upstate prison and he won’t see the parole board until the year 2032,” Spota said.

State Supreme Court Justice Mark Cohen set sentencing for Herman for May 15.

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