|
Phi Sig Kap in Trouble
Long IslandBar suspect bothered by ‘mob’
Attorney for student arrested for mowing down 4 outside Glen Cove club says client was being harassed
BY MICHAEL FRAZIER
Newsday Staff Writer
June 20, 2006
A Virginia college student charged with drunken driving and hitting a crowd outside the Glen Cove Golf Club with his father's Jaguar after being tossed from the club, was ordered held Monday without bail.
Sayed Khaled El-Waraky, 19, of Vienna, Va., pleaded not guilty to assault, drunken driving and other charges in First District Court in Hempstead.
Maureen and Bill Basdavanos, whose 22-year-old son, Sean, remains in the hospital after being struck by El-Waraky, attended the arraignment.
"It's just an absolute nightmare for anybody," said Maureen Basdavanos, 46. "I can't believe someone would actually do this."
Prosecutors said El-Waraky started a fight at the club's Soundview Bar before threatening to kill bouncer Sean Basdavanos, of Glen Cove, when he threw him out.
But El-Waraky's attorney, Ryan Brownyard of Farmingdale, said his client was reacting to "a mob" who struck him, followed him outside and pounded on his father's black 2005 Jaguar sedan.
El-Waraky, who was visiting a fraternity brother living in Glen Cove, is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., taking classes in the business school, said university spokeswoman Maralee Csellar.
According to the university newspaper, the Eagle, El-Waraky had a personal Web page on facebook.com, a social networking site.
Under his interests, it reads, "anything fast enough to do something stupid in, women and a lot of alcohol." The site also says he is a sophomore and in the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, the Eagle said.
Nassau police said El-Waraky had been drinking with five fraternity brothers Sunday when he got into an altercation with someone at the club's Soundview Bar. He was kicked out the bar about 2:45 a.m., police said.
A man answering the phone at the Soundview Bar said, "We are not commenting."
After being kicked out, El-Waraky got into the Jaguar and headed for the parking lot exit. But he turned the car around and sped toward a crowd gathered outside the bar.
"He deliberately made a U-turn, put the car into a high rate of speed and drove directly into the crowd," said Det. Sgt. Richard Laursen, of the Nassau's Homicide Squad.
Police said El-Waraky struck Basdavanos, Salvatore Martinez, 23, of Glen Cove, Matthew Granger, 23, of Water Mill and Matthew Hurwitz of Glen Cove.
Basdavanos, who suffered fractures to the jaw and face, and Granger, who had multiple skull fractures, were taken to North Shore University in Manhasset. Monday, Basdavanos was on a respirator, while Granger was in a medically induced coma, but both were in stable condition, police said.
Martinez was treated and released from North Shore Hospital in Glen Cove, police said. Hurwitz declined medical treatment.
Glen Cove police responding to a 911 call were nearly hit head on by El-Waraky driving on the wrong side of Lattingtown Road, Laursen said.
The officer who stopped El-Waraky smelled alcohol and arrested El-Waraky, he added.
El-Waraky, an Egyptian national, was charged with two counts of first-degree assault, two counts of third-degree assault, two counts of leaving the scene of an accident with serious physical injury and one count of driving while under the influence. He has a previous DWI conviction in Virginia in 2003.
|
Linear Mode
