WHITE PLAINS, New York — A former New York City police sergeant who drove drunk the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway and killed a 61-year-old doorman driving home from his night shift has been sentenced to four to 12 years in prison. Judge Anne B. Bianchi imposed the sentence on Wednesday, October 28, in Westchester County Court on Tiffany Howell, 48, of Warwick in Orange County, who had pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and second-degree manslaughter in the January 22, 2026 death of Manuel Boitel of Peekskill, Attorney General Letitia James's office announced.
Source: NY Attorney General (via Black Star News), Oct. 28, 2026
The sentence was shorter than the six to 18 years the attorney general's office had asked for, and Boitel's family told the court the punishment was too lenient. Howell, who apologised in court and said she took full responsibility, was led from the courtroom in handcuffs, according to reporting on the hearing. Her two sentences run concurrently — together, not one after the other — and her driver licence has been revoked.
Source: HeyDay News (9 outlets), Oct. 29, 2026
The night on the Taconic
At 11:37 p.m. on January 22, 2026, Howell was driving south in the northbound lanes of the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester County at more than 50 miles per hour when she crashed head-on into the car driven by Boitel, the attorney general's office said. Her blood alcohol content was at least 0.18 — more than twice New York's legal limit of 0.08. Boitel was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.
Source: NY Attorney General (via Black Star News), Oct. 28, 2026
Boitel was on the most ordinary journey there is: the drive home after work. The 61-year-old had worked the door at the St. Tropez condominium at 340 East 64th Street in Manhattan for about three decades, was a member of the 32BJ SEIU union and was about two years from retirement. He and his wife, Marisol Cabrera Boitel, had been married 42 years after emigrating from the Dominican Republic, and he was a father of two, according to reporting on the case since January.
Source: East Side Feed, Aug. 2026
Prosecutors said Howell had become intoxicated at an off-duty NYPD Holy Name Society party in Greenburgh before getting behind the wheel — an event with an open bar, according to what prosecutors told the court at her arraignment. A prosecutor in the attorney general's office said at that earlier hearing that Howell had 'no regard for his life, or any other life for that matter, as she drove into oncoming traffic.'
Source: HeyDay News (9 outlets), Oct. 29, 2026
From modified duty to a guilty plea
The NYPD placed Howell on modified duty after the collision and suspended her without pay 11 days later, on February 2, following an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation; she left the department within weeks. She had joined the NYPD in 2008 and held the rank of sergeant, assigned to a unit that developed strategies for addressing juvenile crime, according to earlier reporting.
Source: HeyDay News (9 outlets), Oct. 29, 2026
Indicted in March on five felony counts, Howell pleaded guilty on August 19, 2026 to the top charge, aggravated vehicular homicide, a class B felony, and to second-degree manslaughter, a class C felony. The top count alone had carried up to 25 years in prison. At the plea, Judge Bianchi said she would sentence her to four to 12 years, continued bail at a $250,000 bond, a $500,000 partially secured bond or a $100,000 cash alternative, and recorded Howell's waiver of her right to appeal — the same four-to-12-year term she then imposed on October 28.
Source: NY Attorney General, Aug. 19, 2026
Why the attorney general prosecuted the case
The case was prosecuted not by the Westchester County district attorney but by the attorney general's Office of Special Investigation. Under New York's Executive Law Section 70-b, that office assesses every reported incident in which a police or peace officer — on duty or off duty, and whether or not the person who died was armed or in custody — may have caused a death, and conducts a full investigation where the assessment indicates the officer may have done so. Westchester District Attorney Susan Cacace's office had no role in the prosecution.
Source: NY Attorney General (via Black Star News), Oct. 28, 2026
An apology the family would not accept
Howell apologised to the family in court. 'I know I made a terrible decision and I know the consequences are irreversible,' she said, adding: 'It's incredibly painful to know that my actions were the complete opposite of the values that I spent my career upholding.' Her attorney, Andrew Quinn, called the collision 'tragic beyond words' and out of character for a woman he described as one of integrity, kindness, generosity and compassion.
Source: HeyDay News (9 outlets), Oct. 29, 2026
Boitel's family rejected both the apology and the sentence. His son Eric Boitel told the court his father had looked up to law enforcement, and that 'knowing that he was killed by someone from the very group he looked up to just feels horrible.' Of the apology, Eric said: 'It doesn't feel sincere. It doesn't feel like it's from the heart.' Another family member, Marvin Boitel, called the apology performative, saying: 'Four to 12 isn't enough.'
Source: HeyDay News (9 outlets), Oct. 29, 2026
Howell's two terms run concurrently, so her prison range is four to 12 years — not eight to 24. She becomes eligible for parole after four years, but eligibility is only a first chance at release, not a guarantee, and no exact release date has been set. Her driver licence is revoked and, having waived her right to appeal at her guilty plea, she has no appeal route left.
Why a parkway crash in Westchester reaches far beyond one family
Wrong-way, alcohol-impaired driving on divided highways is one of the deadliest patterns on American roads, and its victims are disproportionately the people who share the road at night: shift workers driving home, delivery drivers and the long-haul and regional truckers — including many Punjabi drivers in the New York–New Jersey corridor — whose working day runs while most people sleep. This case added a second breach of trust: the driver was a police supervisor, trained and sworn to enforce the very law she broke, a point Boitel's family returned to again and again in court.
What happens next
Howell now begins serving the four-to-12-year term, with parole eligibility after four years and no appeal available. For the Boitel family, the criminal case is closed but the loss is permanent: a husband and father of two who was two years from retirement did not come home from an ordinary night shift, and no sentence the court could impose was going to change that — which is precisely what his family told the judge on Wednesday.